Strange but True
Part 1
By Robert Rowland
When decimalisation arrived in 1971 , most arcades either sold or scrapped a high
percentage of their machines; not Marine Pastimes arcade in Mablethorpe. Marine had
a massive area at the rear of the building, as well as an upstairs area, which was
accessible by stairs or lift. A lot of the smaller machines were taken upstairs and quite
a few larger machines were moved into a maze of old sheds at the back.
I was very friendly with the owner's mum, and in the 1980s I used to park my
motor bike at her house at the back of the arcade. I could see machines piled up in
some of the sheds, and one day she showed me inside a few. They were full of
machines that I had first seen as a kid back in 1965. The two Tutty Fruities were there,
a Monkey Climb, a Marathon Cycle Racer, other two-player games, loads of cranes
and much much more.
Those sheds seemed a little unsafe, and a lot of the machines were suffering from
damp and water damage from rain seeping in. One particular summer in the 1980s, a
number of break-ins started to occur; not in the arcade itself but in the run-down sheds
at the back, and some of the smaller machines were being taken. This happened a few
times, and I remember on a number of occasions during that summer the owner and
his son, plus a friend, camped out in those sheds all night, hoping to catch the culprits
red-handed; but they never did. Over a period of time, more stuff was taken,
prompting the owner to put up steel bars with sharp jagged pointed tops and barbed
wire on top. That ended the break-ins.
Moving forward to the summer of 2009, I was chatting with the owner' s son, as I
had just bought a 3d Bingolett and a ld Astra from him. Out of the blue, he asked,
"Do you want to see all the machines upstairs?" This was unheard of, as only the staff
were ever allowed upstairs. It was a sight I will never forget; a massive room above
the arcade, filled with pre 1971 machines, all piled on top of each other. To be honest,
there were that many you could hardly move or see anything clearly, but there were
hundreds of machines. I was just checking an old allwin, when unfortunately, the
owner appeared, and he didn't look too pleased that I was up there. "It's all staying up
here," he said (not true, because I had already had stuff from up here).
This was the same owner, who in the 1990s was chatting to a USA visitor, and
this chap said, "I want to buy one of your Rock-Ola World' s Fair Jigsaws." {The
arcade had sixteen in operation at the time). He opened his chequebook and said,
"write your price on this blank cheque." But the owner declined. In truth, he just
wouldn't sell anything.
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