Mechanical Memories Magazine

How I Started My Collection
By Richard Brewerton
I can easily trace back to when I first took an interest in fairgrounds and slot machines,
to the summer of' 66 in fact. I was sixteen, still at school, and in the spring of that year
three of us went on our first holiday without parents. Pretty exciting stuff at the time,
though laughable now, we went camping on Hayling Island. One of the parents took us
there, helped pitch the tent, showed how to use the Primus stove, then left us to fend for
ourselves, returning a week later. I think they were expecting to get a phone call to say
"help", but we survived. My memories of that week are that we didn't have much
money, it rained and all our gear got wet, and we spent most of the time on the beach,
hanging around the fair and trying to chat up girls. In that respect, the swinging sixties
didn't swing our way, life was a lot more innocent then.
Towards the end of our week, one morning whilst mooching around the fair, the
guy on the dodgems asked if we wanted a free go. The fair was quiet and they wanted
to run the cars to drum up some trade. Say no more and we were in. For about half an
hour we drove round and round having a rare old time until we'd attracted enough
punters then we had to get out. Needles to say, we were back the next day to see if they
needed any more help.
Later that year, I managed to go back for the summer holidays, and got a job on
the dodgems. I remember we started at I 0.00 in the morning removing the covers and
sweeping up around the machines, and they would run some of the rides empty to let
folk know the fair was open. As well as the dodgems, there was a big wheel, ghost
train, gallopers, helter skelter, juvenile rides, arcade, plus assorted side stalls and food
kiosks. There were twenty cars on the dodgems and once things got going two of us
worked them, collecting the cash and passing out change. No tokens in those days. The
fair closed at 11.00 at night, so it was a long day but I didn't mind, I was having the
time of my life. The pay wasn't great but a lot of people lost change from their pockets
into the cars, so we'd keep an eye out and pick up quite a bit during the day. This I
spent on staff discount food from the cafe, mostly chips as I remember, and playing the
machines. One particular allwin I found seemed fairly generous and I took a lot of
chocolate out of it. I suppose it's a good thing that this was only a summer job or I'd
probably be dead now on that diet. Strangely, I now have a chocolate allwin, maybe the
same type a I played years ago, and I still like chocolate.
One weekend that summer, the fair was suddenly filled with a huge gang of
rockers. They were probably only a few years older than me, but with all the long hair
and leather jackets when they swarmed on to the dodgems it was a bit scary, especially
as I had the job of trying to collect their money. As soon as the cars were full the ride would
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