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Marooned slots

Posted: Sat Oct 24, 2020 9:43 pm
by coppinpr
Today was my golden wedding anniversary! Why do we care I hear my long time associates on the forum cry! Well my daughter was kind enough to buy my wife and me a bound copy of the daily newspaper from that day (24th Oct 1970). Looking at the paper now it's amazing the sort of story that made it to daily rags in those days.

In between a story about an American woman who forgot her purse while making a long-distance shopping trip so took her husband to a pawn shop and pawned him for $27 then went shopping only returning to "redeem" him in the evening when she had recovered her purse (she had to pay $1.65 in fees + 20c for a cup of coffee he had had) and a story about Wolves paying £50,000 for striker Bobby Gould I found the photo below showing the piermaster rescuing slot machines from the pier head arcade after the rest of the pier at Clevedon (Somerset) had collapsed into the sea a week earlier. Four more machines had to left behind until the sea calmed down, so not the biggest arcade in the world then. :lol:

Re: Marooned slots

Posted: Sat Oct 24, 2020 10:23 pm
by treefrog
Happy anniversary !!THUMBSX2!! something I can say I will never achieve :HaHa:

Makes a change to hear a story of rescuing machines from been dropped off a pier as a year later they would have ended up back in the mud anyway. I would have a bucket full of pound coins with the number of people sharing stories of burning or smashing machines, last week an operator was telling me exactly the same story and was old enough to have been involved in it.....

Re: Marooned slots

Posted: Sun Oct 25, 2020 7:44 am
by dutchboy
Congratulations paul!! A lot of people will reach only 50 months these days. !THUMBS!

Re: Marooned slots

Posted: Sun Oct 25, 2020 7:53 am
by coppinpr
I looked a little deeper (excuse the pun) into the collapse of Clevedon pier and found it to be an unusual story with a happy ending. The pier actually collapsed while being stress tested for insurance reasons, something that had only been introduced a couple of years earlier. The council used the collapse to introduce a plan to demolish the rest of the pier but, as has happened several times with other piers, the townspeople sprung to the pier's defence. The pier was considered by many to be the most attractive pier in the UK and the townspeople hung on until a public inquiry was held and the demolition plan was quashed. The rebuilding took 15 years to complete. Celebrations of the piers deliverance from destruction were held on the pier last week.

A short amateur film of the aftermath of the collapse:


Re: Marooned slots

Posted: Sun Oct 25, 2020 9:53 am
by arrgee
Congratulations Paul on you and your wife reaching your 50th. Next year will be my in-laws 70th! What a milestone.
Obviously your wife has an acceptance of your slot hobby. :!?!:

Re: Marooned slots

Posted: Sun Oct 25, 2020 9:06 pm
by coppinpr
Obviously your wife has an acceptance of your slot hobby
more importantly an acceptance of me !! :shock:

thanks for all the kind words !THUMBS!

Re: Marooned slots

Posted: Sun Oct 25, 2020 11:06 pm
by JC
By coincidence, my birthday is 24th October.
Weird to think I was born just as you were getting married !!ESCAPE!!

Re: Marooned slots

Posted: Mon Oct 26, 2020 9:49 am
by coppinpr
Weird to think I was born just as you were getting married
Thank god you weren't born a year later...chaos theory might have made you my son :shock: anyway..I thought you were only 25 :tut