One Armed Bandit

The summer holidays of 1982 were a fantastic time, the weather if my memory serves me correctly was just about passable for summer time i.e. it was not pissing it down with rain day after day. Messer’s Crocket and Tubbs were busy busting drug dealing, greasy haired, Latin American villainous types weekly in Miami Vice, while remarkably still finding the time for some hot hands up the jumper action with a never ending procession of ever more scantily clad nubile harlots. “Never give it up! Give it up! Give it up!” Sang would be Caribbean crooner Harry Wayne Casey a.k.a. KC from KC and The Sunshine Band in the number one song of the day. Never give it up! These two posing lounge lizards were virtually beating the women off with shitty sticks the lucky bastards.

Speaking of greasy haired villainous types we come to our local golf club bar steward, the poe faced and most miserable sod on the face of the planet Gavin Ramsey. Old Gav was about fifty, six foot three inches tall, a thin drawn sallow face and what with his slick back black hair which was receding slightly at the temples, he bore more than a passing resemblance to a certain Transylvanian blood sucking count. That was until he opened his mouth when outpoured a never-ending torrent of foulmouthed cockney rhyming slang. He was all “Fack this and fack that! I’m off back down souf you shower of cants!” He even succeeded in making comedy cockney / dodgy geezer Mike “Run-around Now!” Reid look positively posh.

So it was then that his nickname in the golf clubs junior locker room was Drac or to be more precise “Fack’n Drac!” (Pronounced phonetically with a comedy over the top London accent) Drac judging by his constant ill humour was a man who’s bed only had wrong sides for him to get out of in the morning. He hated all children with a passion which meant for us weekly bollockings from the ill tempered bar steward for even the mildest of club rule infractions. “You fack’n kids drive me fack’n mental! Pick up those crisp packets and stop making so much fack’n noise you shower of fack’n poofs! Bloody kids should be back at school!” Was his well rehearsed and it has to be said sadly over familiar opening gambit as he lorded it over the junior section on a daily basis.

Yes it has to be said that in the presence or indeed even the earshot of Drac the most rebellious and rowdiest of teenagers would go strangely quiet. The problem was that as Drac was the clubs bar steward he actually lived on the premises in a flat to the rear of the clubhouse. This meant that even on his alleged days off the wankers wanker was always around the place and had the uncanny knack of walking in to a room just when you least wanted him to.

Golf clubs are mostly private members set ups, which means they are allowed, for a small monthly fee to the local council for a gaming licence, to install and make a profit from fruit/slot machines (One armed bandits). All teenage boys are obsessed with four things; naked ladies, beer, sport and of course gambling. It’s a piss poor state of affairs however as legally all you can do is sport until you are eighteen, however just because its against the law resourceful chaps that we were we wouldn’t let the small matter of plods gaming legislation stand in the way of a good punt on the bandits.

How we got around the problem of underage gambling while under the ever-watchful glare of the fack’n dreadful Drac was simplicity itself. The club bar opened at eleven o’clock in the morning, the cleaner however unlocked the lounge door to get on with the housekeeping at seven o’clock and had generally cleared out by eight thirty.

Bingo!

Nearly an hour before Drac usually surfaced to restock so we could play our luck and spin the reels unhindered. This went on daily for about a week. The odd pound or two was won but nothing special, then early one Friday morning Oss came in to the club lounge brandishing a 10p piece he had found in the car park. “Gentlemen start your fack’n engines!” He declared in an over the top piss take of our favourite licensee as he stuck it in to in the slot machine, which was called Hotdog and pressed the flashing yellow play button…

The reels spun and clunk… A white bulldog appeared on the win line, then a second later, clunk another white bulldog fell on to the win line next to it.

“Three bulldogs is a tenner! (£10)” Proclaimed Nimble in a high pitched over excited voice. “Shhhhhhhhhh!” we all hissed back fearing Drac would hear him through the paper thin walls and be upon us at any moment.

Clunk… Another bulldog stuck on the win line. “Fucking hell that’s cash!” Screeched Nimble in abject terror at the prospect of being caught by the noise this payout would inevitable create and who looked like he was about to loose it completely when clunk white bulldog number four fell into place and completed the sequence.

Woo! Woo! Woo! Woo! Roared the machine shattering the early morning silence as all of its lights flashed repeatedly. Then oh spoons, Chunk! Chunk! Chunk! Clunk! Clunk! Clunk! Clunk! Wham! Bam! Bam! As the machine spat out the jackpot of £100 in 10p pieces. A monumental amount of cash bearing in mind my pocket money at the time was about £1.50 a week, which sounds measly now but a can of Coke was about 15p, a bag of crisps 10p and a Mars Bar around the same price. Also more importantly it represented one thousand mini alarm bells all alerting Drac to our illegal reel spinning activity.

Nimble bottled it and ran out of the door, the rest of us although highly excited at the prospect of spending the ill gotten gains were all flapping about like headless chickens. We were all in a panic, unsure whether to grab some cash and run or play it cool, wait for all the money to be pumped out of the machine, pocket the lot and walk off cool as a cucumber. Guess what… it was a free for all and what can only be described as pure pandemonium broke out, as we each tried to grab as much as we could carry. I stuffed as many coins in to my trouser pockets as they would hold, Oss his pockets already bulging grabbed the bottom of his sweater and stretched it out as the rest of us shovelled handfuls of coins in to it. We ran out of the lounge along the hall and in to the sanctity of a deserted junior locker room where we divided up the swag and deposited our cash in to the bottoms of our lockers.

We had more through luck than careful planning gotten away with it, or so I thought, as a week or so later I was playing golf with my great uncle, forgetting the foot of my locker was awash with about £20 in 10p pieces I opened it and removed my golf bag with him looking on. “Where did you get all those coins?” He whispered with a quizzical look on his face. No point in trying to pull the wool over his eyes as an unpleasant meeting between the toe of his size ten golf shoe and my backside would inventively have been the result. “We won it out of the bandit” I whispered nervously back awaiting his undoubtedly candid sweary appraisal of the situation, which would surely precede him killing me to death.

There was silence for a couple of seconds before an unexpected huge smile broke over his stern looking face. “Good stuff!” He said, followed by a cautionary “Don’t let it happen again! You crafty little bastards!”

Once again top top chap.