When I were a young lad, a town like Consett might as well have been in the middle of the Sahara desert. Everywhere exciting seemed so far away as to be unattainable – unless I got to go with my parents.

Newcastle was about 15 miles away, the seaside (and arcades) twice as far. Having relatives that live on the coast was helpful, because every once in a while, when visiting them, I got to go down to the seafront and have an hour in the arcades. These little glimpses of nirvana were so fleeting that I’d hang onto them for dear life, hoping they’d last months, not just minutes.

Hey, wait a minute…that’s not my bus is it? Damn!! Ah well, there’ll be another one
along in a minute.

However, once I got to a certain age, say 13 or 14, it was accepted that I was a bit more responsible, and was given more freedoms. Some of these freedoms meant being able to take a bus trip, with friends, into Newcastle, or if I could afford it, go on from there to Whitley Bay.

Now, this wouldn’t be a cheap outing. There was the bus fare, naturally. There would be the cost of the arcades (expensive) and food (which I could, of course, do without. Arcade games were a necessity, food was not). Then, there was the Metro fare. The Metro is basically like a train, but back then it was only 10p each way for all kids under 14, and for all schoolkids with a pass.

And so, at the age of 14, and having saved up for weeks, I’d decided I was going to go to Whitley Bay with my mate Dean. It was a Saturday, it was hot and sunny, it was perfect for a great day at the arcades.

The Spanish City, Whitley Bay. If you listen very closely, you might still hear Galaxian.
Yes, it really WAS that loud.

Whitley Bay in the ‘80s was one of the finest locations in the land for arcade games. The entire seafront ran in a kind of crescent shape, and almost every building in that section was a huge arcade, filled with just about any game you could think of, and plenty that you’d never even heard of.

You could actually tell which arcade you were walking past by the sounds emanating from within: Ghosts ‘n’ Goblins and Nemesis? That’ll be The Golden Nugget. Xevious and Galaxian? That’s the Spanish City. “Get yer winkles here!”? Ah, that’s the one non-arcade building on the block… Honestly, just walking around, breathing in and letting the sounds wash over you would almost be enough to make your day. Almost. Of course, you had to play until your money was gone to make the day complete.

So, on this day, that’s just what I did. I figured that as I had my return bus ticket already, I’d only need the 10p for the Metro trip back to Newcastle, and the rest could go on a worthier cause. Like one last game of Star Force, for instance. What a great way to finish the day.

Star Force. It’s lovely, but was it really worth that
much hassle? Well, yes.

So, we walked back to the Metro station, thoroughly sated after a whole day’s worth of gaming. We got to the station, I put my 10p in the machine for my kiddy ticket, rounded the corner… and the ticket inspectors were there. No problem, I thought, I’ve got a ticket. I duly showed it.

“How old are you?” asked the grim-looking inspector.

“Fourteen!” I said.

“Where’s your pass?” he asked.

“Erm, what pass?”

See, I was from not just another town, but another county, and they didn’t operate a pass system there, so I had no idea what this bloke was talking about, and neither did Dean. I just ummed and aahed and stammered my way along, telling him we didn’t have passes, only to be told they weren’t going to let us on with a 10p ticket if we didn’t have a pass.

Shit! We were screwed! We were nearly 30 miles from home, with no money, and these bastards weren’t going to let us get home!

That’s quite a hike. Better get cracking.

So, we started walking. We figured that if we kept going, we’d come to another Metro station somewhere along the way, one that didn’t have ticket inspectors manning it. And when we did, we’d just hop on (we’d kept our tickets, the ones they’d refused to accept) and plead innocence if anyone stopped us. Three hours of walking later, having been through more streets in one day than most of my previous lifetime, we did find a Metro station, and it was empty.

Ahhh, an empty Metro station. A welcoming sight for two bedraggled young gamers.

Knackered, we flopped onto the next Metro to turn up. It started moving… and then we noticed it was heading right back to Whitley Bay!

Double shit! The bastards would probably get on and kick us off! We held our breath as we pulled in to Whitley Bay station and… they’d all gone. If we’d just waited around a bit longer, we could have got on the train there, and saved ourselves the pain of a very long walk.

Still, it was probably best we hadn’t hung around. Three hours in an arcade town with no money? Hell.

PAULEMOZ, July 2004.

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