Mechanical Memories Magazine

Issue: 2009-March - Issue 33

By Richard Brewerton
When my son left home and vacated the back bedroom, I promptly commandeered it to
become 'The Arcade'. I had previously been located in the shed, so this was a step
upmarket. Much to the wife's disgust though, "We should keep it as a spare bedroom,
just in case he wants to come back" she said. If that had looked imminent I would have
had to change the locks, but for now anyway, I could claim squatter's rights.
Slowly, my little collection of machines grew, and began to fill the available wall
space, so under the cover of darkness items of bedroom furniture were removed. Is
anyone interested in a one owner single bed, fairly clean but quite high mileage? The
old bedside cupboards and three-drawer chest now support my collection of bandits.
Well, all two of them at the moment, but hopefully more to come. Why are they so
heavy? The drawers are all filling up nicely with all the bits and pieces that you collect,
which will come in handy one day. A drawer full of paperwork, books that I've bought,
leaflets and manuals I've downloaded, and of course all the back issues of Mechanical
Memories Magazine. Allwin spares in another drawer, a box of assorted springs and a
box of split pins and washers.
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Page 10
The thing about this hobby is that there is always something that you can find to do. I
soon realised that the single light in the bedroom, especially with a low energy bulb in
it, did not display my machines very well, so it was off to B&Q for some cheap
downlighters. Now you can see them. Then following the great success of the completion
of my first bandit, (it still worked) and now being half way through the second, I realised
that I needed more sockets to plug them in. So that's the next task, back to B&Q for
sockets, cable and trunking.
Another thing that has occupied me for a while is my display of saucy seaside
postcards which I collected bit by bit on Ebay. I don't know about which ones are rare
and collectable, but I do know which ones I find funny. I have them mounted on large
cards pinned to the wall above the machines. It doesn't matter how often I look at them,
they always make me laugh. One of my favourites is the lady with her little girl on the
beach, moaning to a man to keep his dog away because he keeps sniffing round her little
Fanny. It brings tears to my eyes, though the wife thinks I'm a pervert. I'm also
interested in old cars, and back in the sixties I had a Zephyr and a Zodiac. I'd lave to
have one now, but have to settle for some posters and old advertisements. You need a
decent garage/workshop, which I haven't got, so machines are an easier option. She
moans ifl'm working on a machine in the kitchen, so ifit was an old car, she'd go spare.
I hadn't really thought about it until now but the cars, machines and postcards all from
the sixties are, I guess, a means of briefly reclaiming my youth. My ' Arcade' has become
a time machine where I can step back to the sixties for a while.
Saucy seaside postcards and classic 60s cars adorn the walls of Richard's arcade.
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Future scanning projects are planned by the International Arcade Museum Library (IAML).

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