I could not believe it, l was so pleased that my memory was in fact correct; there it was,
in its case displaying all its glory, as will be seen from the photos he is a fairly basic
character and the case style suggests an early example. It brought back all those
memories of that seaside experience, standing in front of the pier watching m1d listening
to this Laughing Policeman. The only sad part of this tale is that I just do not have room
for this in om house; otherwise f would have bid on it!
The seller put a link to Youtube showing a video of it working and I have visited it a
couple of times - oh those memories! I have si nce discovered that there is a working
version in the Hull Museum of Transport, although this looks to be much later than the
cl3ay automaton but still using the Charles Penrose recording (apologies for the awful
photo, it is a screen shot of the poor quality Youtube video).
So my memory was not playing tricks on me after all and I did, all those years ago,
sec and hear the Laughing Policeman; a pleasing thought. I still have one question; does
anyone have any information about this piece of coin-op nostalgia? I would be very
interested to learn more.
Richard Goddard
Screen shot from the Youtube video of the Laughing Policeman at the Hull museum.
Page 18