Mechanical Memories Magazine

Two days later, a car and trailer pulled up outside our house with four machines all
tightly strapped down. I can't remember how much I paid for them but can't have
been much because I was still in my last year at school. The machines I ended up with
were two Bradley Challengers (the earlier all metal type), a Bryans Trickier and a
Steer-a-ball. I played these newly-acquired machines at home for a couple of weeks,
but sadly, I became bored with them.
The Trickier upset me because you used to get ten balls dropping down the
playfield, one at a time, and if you caught them you scored 1, 2 or 3. However, when a
ball was caught in the 3 points section, the score pointer only moved one position
instead of three, and I had no idea how to fix this problem. Looking back, it was .
probably only a little adjustment needed to fix, but at the time I just thought he had
sold me a load of rubbish!
The Steer-a-Ball was a bit of a challenge for the fust few days, but I also soon got
fed up with that. The large steel ball was workable down to the bottom row, but then it
always seemed to roll past the 'home' hole and into the lost. I was even trying to lift
my own machine, despite its weight, to get that ball to drop into the home (coin return)
winning hole. To be honest, they were not the sort of machines that I was brought up
on. The size of the Steer-a-Ball didn' t help, as I only had a small shed to myself at the
bottom of the garden to keep my machines.
Within three months both of those machines were sold on; I can't even remember
who ended up getting them. Regarding the two Challengers, these are machines I did
play in the 1960s, but being young and foolish, within six months the main front
glasses on both machines were broken. I remember one of the machines tipping over,
and smash went that glass; I think the other met a similar fate. After this, I started
messing with them, pulling parts off here and there, and eventually what was left of
them ended up in the dustbin . Believe it or not, it was all good fun at the time. Of
course, it's now 2013 and I could cry to think I actually owned those machines. I
would now welcome all four back with open arms. Strange but true.
Robert Rowland
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