Back in the 1980s, when the Walt Disney Company were looking for somewhere to build a European theme park, they seriously considered Dagenham in Essex.
I'll let Scott Lavene pick up the story from there...
Eventually Disney settled on Paris. Because you can never trust a town without jazz clubs.
Disneyland In Dagenham is the title track from the latest Scott Lavene album. Hear more here.
A few years later (1990) I was involved in negotiations with Universal Studios to open studios and a theme park in Rainham Marshes, a few miles west of Dagenham. It was meant to be their counterpart to EuroDisney but got called off when a fire destroyed about 25% of their Hollywood studios and sets. A lost opportunity to gaze down on itinerant scrap metal dealers from the top of a rollercoaster.
ReplyDeleteEast not west of Dagenham.
DeleteI'm guessing your involvement was something to do with the head of Universal actually being a megalomaniac intent on using the theme park as a HQ in his world domination plans.
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