Taxi Offices & Chip Shops

Should you ever find yourself in the northwest of County Durham, you might encounter a growing town by the name of Consett. It’s a fairly unremarkable town – once known for its mighty steel works, but now more famous for producing Phileas Fogg crisps, and for cultivating armies of pissheads who go out on a Saturday night, whatever the weather or season, wearing only a T-shirt and jeans (or mini skirt, if female). It’s similar to Newcastle, except that it’s hundreds of feet above sea level, therefore much colder and its people invariably harder.

Sadly, there’s no Consett International Airport.

In the early-to-mid eighties, the loss of the steel works destroyed the place. People were very, very poor and, unfortunately for the kids of Consett, this was the boomtime in the videogames industry. Being very, very poor meant there was no way to visit the faraway seaside, and the bright lights and seductive sounds of hundreds of arcade games were simply out of reach.

Or so it seemed. Businesses in the area were quick to embrace this coin-op hunger – but not in the risky, expensive form of standard arcades. No – taxi offices and chip shops were the cultural visionaries. Why make do with boring old seats for your taxi customers when they could be pumping money into a Hyper Sports machine? Parisi’s chippy isn’t using the back room–so why not turn it into a mini arcade? The anguish of the town’s poverty-blighted children was swept away in a tidal wave of Asteroids and Space Invaders. Things were good. If parents were arguing about the lack of money to pay bills – well, we had an escape, and even the giant rat living behind the Astro Blaster machine wouldn’t stop us from clogging up the chippy. Even if money was really tight, there was always the option of having a Twix for dinner instead of a Gregg’s pastie (thus saving 20p for a shot on Star Force and, if you were lucky, a game of Gauntlet).

”Grease? Coming right up, guv. And what say I tan your sorry arse at Galaxian?”

The taxi offices were shrewd operators. They didn’t just have any old cheap tat filling their office space, they rotated the games often and they went for quality. The thrill of standing in Neasham’s, by the four-player Gauntlet with your 10p on Thyra the Valkyrie was unmatched anywhere else in town. Actually getting to play the game was a challenge in itself. You knew you were putting that 10p at risk when you laid it on the joystick panel. There was a more than reasonable chance that one of the big lads would swipe it to further their game, and there was no chance of you getting it back. That would all change when they realised they needed you in the game to keep them alive for longer…

If Gauntlet was off-limits, then cramming into AA Taxis and challenging a stranger to a game of ‘doubles’ on Hyper Sports made the drudgery seem worthwhile. It was relatively easy to qualify on each event, so you knew you’d get your money’s worth out of that 10p piece. If both players were really good, then so much the better. Whatever happened, there was always excitement, either because you knew you were going to play a favourite game, or in anticipation of the new machines that might be in today. Hyper Sports stayed for ages, and Kung Fu Master and Star Force had good runs. More obscure titles came and went, such as Section Z, Metrocross and A.S.O. (Armored Scrum Object), but all were gratefully received by us entertainment-thirsty kids.

”Taxi! Hello! Hello? Oh God, no… I’m the last one left alive…”

Taxi offices don’t have arcade games any more. They have grey walls and filthy coffee machines, and miserable women smoking 30 a day – alone behind the glass with Michael Bolton’s Greatest Hits blaring away on a shabby old tape player. I don’t hear that. I hear the sound of shattering skeets and laser death. Consett’s not much of a town – a bit strange and certainly not a place you’d want to visit. But, for a while there, it was the closest to paradise that a schoolkid could get.

Book a London taxi online. Lots of luck.
Some dead good stuff on our old steel industry.
How to make the ‘perfect’ fish and chips.

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