Canvey Casino Double Six

[gameswat]

Currently working on this machine and decided to look up the Canvey name plate for some history. Seems like it would've been a great place to visit in its heyday. And rather than guessing, very interesting to actually know the definite location for a change!

[badpenny]

Lot of social history there.
Canvey Island, England's Oil City, The Thames Delta

Dr Feelgood ...... and the amazing Wilko Johnson who sadly is on his way .... Cancer...... and is currently planning a goodbye tour.

This documentary was made a few years back and if I recall does show a bit of The Amusements but you may need the whole film.

[treefrog]

Well Gameswat, if you ever want to sell... I will be top of the list as I was brought up on Canvey and probably would have been there when this machine was hanging on the Casino wall.

Unfortunately, they pulled down the Casino a few years ago, during the 1990s, and all the funfair rides went much earlier. I used to play on these as a kid and fondly remember the helter skelter.

.....Even worse, they have very recently built a horrible business parade in its place, totally out of place with the seafront. I believe the Swann family ran this place for many years...... Canvey was a hugely popular destination for Londoners before and just after the war and I remember in the '60s thousands turning up, filling the grass embankments with cars near the sea wall. The wall was lower then, but as the place is sinking, it has increased in height at least 3 times in the last 60 years.... My grandad refused to leave his house during the great floods of 1953...

It was a great place, more of a village, unlike now.....

[jingle]

How old are you treefrog

[jonesthegarage]

I'd guess he's older than most frogs and younger than most trees.

[badpenny]

I remember him when he was a Sapling Tadpole

[pennymachines]

How old does that make you BP?

[daveslot]

i did manage to get into here to buy some items, although others had beaten me to the choice bits, the rifle range had just gone . think i bought 20 jameison wall machines amongst other items, but got a chance to look everywhere, most of it was 1960/70s large arcade machines, not what i was interested in at the time so left em, got some pics somewhere of storage sheds

[badpenny]

I can remember when you could get four .......

$(KGrHqYOKjYE43-6s9ftBOZ5NBwieg~~60_35.JPG (39.43 KiB) Viewed 6378 times

........... for a penny good or bad.

BP
PS I week ago I was Forty Nineteen.

[slotalot]

Currently working on this machine and decided to look up the Canvey name plate for some history. Seems like it would've been a great place to visit in its heyday. And rather than guessing, very interesting to actually know the definite location for a change!

Hi Gameswat I have some photos of the Casino arcade at Canvey on my website, http://www.slotmachines.bravehost.com/page8.html this is where your machine came from

[treefrog]

Thanks Jingles, Not sure I feel younger and BP we must be the same age.....

My memories are more the fairground and larger amusements behind the Casino.......I must go through family pictures as probably have thousands...The Dr Feelgood video makes it seems much grimmer than it was, honest that was not the case. A lot of Londoners moved there just after the war in very basic prefab accommodation, in fact most of the properties there now, were once prefab shacks, which is why the floods had such an affect. Now they have Dallas style houses in small plots.....My memories go back to 1969 and remember the Island being flooded under 2 foot of water....Family still is attached there as my mother owns half a dozen properties in Furtherwick Road and many family friends are still there.

The sad thing about our seasides are the horrific sea defenses now needed to keep the sea at bay....When I was there is was a pleasant grass bank and now there is this large what seems like curved concrete (military defense style) wall. This seems to be happening all around the coast line and affecting most of our sea side towns...

Ho Hum

[cheeky]

Which year was that Daveslot?

I remember the grass bank and the beauty of Canvey in years gone by. Okay, the Press has never been kind about Canvey but I did spend some of my youth there and I rather liked it. Sadly, as treefrog has said, the concrete wall has ruined it. I am sure they could have engineered something a little better than that!

Lovely machine by the way. More photos of the golden years much appreciated.

[gameswat]

Hi Gameswat I have some photos of the Casino arcade at Canvey on my website, http://www.slotmachines.bravehost.com/page8.html this is where your machine came from

Great pics on your site Slotalot! Thanks for the link as I'd not seen about 40% of them before. The E/M pinball photo you have as 1950's? would date 1967 or later as I can see a classic Gottlieb "King of Diamonds" on the far left, which was released Jan 1967.

And very interesting photo with Acker Bilk in front of a line up of different Allwin style looking machines all sharing the same angular modernist steel cabinets as "Slick". But I've only ever seen that case used on Slick before your photo. Anybody ever found any of these oddities? And I imagine these were also manufactured by the Slick company, NORTH AUTOS?

[slotalot]

Hi Gameswat,
Thanks for the correction on the pinball date, I have now updated the web page
I am always looking for old photos of "British" arcades to add to the page. If anyone has any photos they would like to share via my webpage, please PM me and I will get back to you.

[gameswat]

Slot, you also had a few photos I hadn't seen of the floor standing Essex "Full Team Cricket" machines on location. I got a little excited when i saw the close-up with the two sailors playing one, as the background scene of a grandstand at Lords is hand painted, as they all were. Checked with photos of the machine I once owned.....but not an exact match. Though not as far fetched as you may imagine, I have in fact matched two extremely rare machines that were found in Australia by a friend, dating 1900 and 1920's, to actual pre-war photos from Bollands personal scrapbook! Both had unique converted features that stood out, plus one had nice oak graining which was like comparing a fingerprint. Maybe I'm in the wrong occupation, should be a detective?

[badpenny]

People often say I'm one.
Hang on ..... that's a defective!

[gameswat]

Double Six now fully restored. The back-flash and marquee sign were both badly shrunken and warped. After removing both I softened them with a heat gun and then sandwiched with two sheets of thick glass to cool off and flatten. This time I decided to try something new and after refitting the back-flash laid a sheet of polycarbonate plastic over the top to help stop any chance of further buckling. Hardly noticeable and worth the extra trouble I think.

[pennymachines]

Beautiful job. The plastic over-layer will also prevent ball friction wear to the original flash.

[badpenny]

Wow .... good enough to eat!
And that bit of its personal history in the middle at the top is superb.

[gameswat]

And that bit of its personal history in the middle at the top is superb.

Too right BP! And when you add the rest of the story - sent to the US in the early 70's to be sold at that Californian department store that went broke, then purchased at auction for the Glenn collection, sold much later to two antique dealers, eventually falling into the hands of the illustrious US collector of UK treasure John Peterson, driven by him across the country, then eventually sold on to me to be shipped half way around the world to Perth Australia! Phew.....