One-Armed Bandit
Charles Fey, a car mechanic from San Francisco, never visited Hastings, but he did leave his mark; the one-armed bandit. Fey invented the slot machine in 1897 and did what all successful entrepreneurs do; he gave the people something they never knew they wanted.
I look down on The Stade Amusement Park on the seafront. I mean this both literally – the rear windows of the house overlooks its neon bobbles – and metaphorically. It is hard to love something that sells itself as a place of family fun but does little more than rip through children’s pocket money in minutes, leaving them begging for another bowl of two-pence pieces in the hope of ‘grabbing’ a teddy. I speak from bitter experience.
But in the sheeting rain on cold winter weekends, with only a semiderelict house to go back to, the amusement arcade’s garish ‘come on in’ signs are impossible to resist. There is the option of the new, exquisitely designed, Jerwood Gallery next door, but its Sickerts and Sargents hold limited appeal for five-year-olds. And the crippling £7 entrance fee (£3.50 for a child) doesn’t even include the chance of winning one to take home.
The Amusement Arcade itself sits in the Flamingo Family Fun Park and when the sun shines, the Helter Skelter and Cinderella’s Carousel are huge hits. The evening revellers screeching for mercy on the disco-driven Speed Wave have less charm, but Henry Morton, the current leaseholder of the entire site, isn’t complaining. It is, as they say, a licence to print money. However, times are changing and Mr Morton’s 21-year lease from the council is up for renewal in 2017, but according to the Hastings Old Town Association (HOTRA), Mr Morton has little to worry about. For reasons known only to the council officials who handed out the original leases, his company has an unchallengeable right to a further lease – he’s likely to get another 50 years.
He is under some pressure though. His neighbours, the Arnold Palmer group, who own the crazy golf course further along the beach, upgraded their facilities to world- class standards as part of their lease renewal and threw in a sand volleyball court for the community alongside the free children’s playground. Pats on backs all round.
By contrast, the Stade Amusement Park is offering to build a 100ft-high Ferris wheel that will obliterate a large chunk of the sea view from the medieval old town and presumably be a moneyspinner. Nobody seems that keen, but then like Charles Fey’s slot machines, perhaps it is another clever plan to give us what we didn’t know we wanted.
Next week: Catherine Cookson lived here…
I look down on The Stade Amusement Park on the seafront. I mean this both literally – the rear windows of the house overlooks its neon bobbles – and metaphorically. It is hard to love something that sells itself as a place of family fun but does little more than rip through children’s pocket money in minutes, leaving them begging for another bowl of two-pence pieces in the hope of ‘grabbing’ a teddy. I speak from bitter experience.
But in the sheeting rain on cold winter weekends, with only a semiderelict house to go back to, the amusement arcade’s garish ‘come on in’ signs are impossible to resist. There is the option of the new, exquisitely designed, Jerwood Gallery next door, but its Sickerts and Sargents hold limited appeal for five-year-olds. And the crippling £7 entrance fee (£3.50 for a child) doesn’t even include the chance of winning one to take home.
The Amusement Arcade itself sits in the Flamingo Family Fun Park and when the sun shines, the Helter Skelter and Cinderella’s Carousel are huge hits. The evening revellers screeching for mercy on the disco-driven Speed Wave have less charm, but Henry Morton, the current leaseholder of the entire site, isn’t complaining. It is, as they say, a licence to print money. However, times are changing and Mr Morton’s 21-year lease from the council is up for renewal in 2017, but according to the Hastings Old Town Association (HOTRA), Mr Morton has little to worry about. For reasons known only to the council officials who handed out the original leases, his company has an unchallengeable right to a further lease – he’s likely to get another 50 years.
He is under some pressure though. His neighbours, the Arnold Palmer group, who own the crazy golf course further along the beach, upgraded their facilities to world- class standards as part of their lease renewal and threw in a sand volleyball court for the community alongside the free children’s playground. Pats on backs all round.
By contrast, the Stade Amusement Park is offering to build a 100ft-high Ferris wheel that will obliterate a large chunk of the sea view from the medieval old town and presumably be a moneyspinner. Nobody seems that keen, but then like Charles Fey’s slot machines, perhaps it is another clever plan to give us what we didn’t know we wanted.
Next week: Catherine Cookson lived here…