When I was a kid on a school-holiday day-trip from Castle Cary, I used to love playing the penny slot machines and the coin push machines in the Weymouth amusement arcades, trying to make all the piles of pennies and other shiny coppers cascade down into the tray, but seldom succeeding, even though so many coins seemed to be piled up precariously, layer upon layer, overhanging and just ready to fall and overflow into my lap!
Even more frustrating (and a complete waste of time) were the tantalizing claw-crane grab-and-win machines: the grabber-claws were always so loosely adjusted and ineffective that the crane, even if skilfully positioned and manipulated, could never lift a prize more than a few inches before it slipped through the three claws or prongs and fell back down again.
The grooming-grounds of no-brain gamblers. My friends preferred to go down the road apiece to play the pin-ball machines, which involved a little more skill. Pinball wizards!
Maybe I'll write a short story about the amusement arcades.
We live and learn, especially when the desired prize seems within our grasp!
I wasn't thinking about Brexit, on this occasion. Are people really so nostalgic that they yearn to return to the claw-crane and coin-push machines of their youth?
What I really miss are the old jukeboxes... and this oldie.
Weymouth's Seaside Heritage, English Heritage, 2008 - Pdf file, 91 pages,
Related: Penny Arcade - The Coin Operated Machine Information Site
Twilight of the seaside amusement arcade
The ‘heritagisation’ of the British seaside resort: The rise of the ‘old penny arcade’Anya Chapman and Duncan Light
Melvyn Wright's World of Vintage Slot Machines
Discovering Brighton’s Vintage Amusement Arcade, Ellie and Co
AN AMUSEMENT arcade manager fears his seafront business could soon fold, Dorset Echo.
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