Tinky

Ah, Tinky - I spent many happy hours (and pennies!) playing this machine in the Britannia Pier Amusements at Great Yarmouth in the late sixties.

I was always intrigued by the way the winning slots for the ball used to move mysteriously from side to side before each new play cycle commenced. I never did figure out why they did this - presumably it was done to ensure that the ball did not get stuck, causing the machine to malfunction.

It was also fun being able to see whoever was playing on the other side of the machine through the transparent playfield!

I would travel from a poor area of liverpool, on a double decker bus to Southport, most Sundays,to visit the amusements. Tinky would be my first visit,because I went with little or no money,and if not for Tinky I would have had many miserable years growing up early teens with no money.
When the ping pong ball dropped into the 10 d or the 12d, I would load the four slots with a penny in each (10 or 12) and then press the perspex to hold the ping pong ball in place, and not let it go through the cycle,the machine would then think it's been round, and then pay out, and I would go bright red as people looked at me scooping all the pennies from each of the four troughs.I loved you Tinky

They had a Tinky in Harbour Amusements in St Ives Cornwall in the 70s! I was only a kid but remember it had a hoover inside to blow the balls out! they also had Wheel of Fortune!

In my mind there has never been another machine that looked or even sounded like Tinky.
I have great memories of playing Tinky in The Regent Arcade in Sandown IOW in the late sixties and early seventies. It was a fascinating machine to play and watch. The styling was great and the machine seemed huge to me at the time. It could be played from both sides you could see the expression of the kids playing the machine on the other side, their eyes glued to the ball falling through the pegs. Apart from a couple of lose slots the machine promised a chance of a win every game. I used to bet on a 2p win most times to get my money back and if big win hadn't happened for a while I would bet a 2p win and another higher value to try and get a better win of win my 2p back. This usually kept me in coins for a fair period. My brother and I sometimes played all four-player positions betting on the 2p slot. The odds were the same but it sounded good if you won and all the slots paying out at the same time. The two shillings we went in the arcade with soon disappeared if the ball ended up in lost or another value. I always thought I had a system until I lost my coins and had to go and give the penny pushers a quick push to get a few more coins for free. Another trick was to collect fizzy drinks bottles that had been left on the sea front for their deposit money.
The Regent arcade is the only place I ever saw this machine. It was a huge lino-floored barn of an amusement arcade. I returned to the IOW years later disappointed to find that the arcade had shrunk to about an eighth of its size and contained nothing as grand as the amazing Tinky machine.

This entry was originally added to the guest book page before I realised that you could add a coment here.