10. Slight Return

When you’re young and free and the days yawn out before you, being stuck somewhere unfamiliar for a week with nothing constructive to do but have an ice-cream every day can be oddly formative…

I still define my ‘70s family holiday destinations by the mental route from caravan park/guest house to the nearest arcade/child-friendly place with arcade games in it – ideally by way of a ‘saucy’ postcard carousel.

”Yes, dear. I could well go for a hot lunch”.

There was the shabby, concrete Pontins holiday/boot camp, somewhere – could have been anywhere – which had a ‘recreation room’, prophetically crowded with hungry slot machines, and a single, forlorn, flickery Tempest. I remember beating some older, bigger kid’s score and gaining a sort of wordless, grudging respect which was only intended to last for the time it took for me to walk away very quickly, for his dignity’s sake.

There was the joint trip with one of my dad’s fishing buddies – somewhere near Buxton. Each day, I’d trail behind, as he geared up and plodded down to the same spot by the same river-bank. There, I would dutifully watch and listen and not learn and ache to scoop out my fingernails until I felt enough time had passed to ask him for some money for “the machines”.

”Caught much, mate?”…
“No. But I have made my decision. They will all pay”.

The town arcade was a lonely ten-minute walk away from the river, but they didn’t have paedophiles in them days.

I remember a Mr. Do, a Ladybug, a Missile Command…

I also remember my dad’s mate’s older daughter, who wore comedy-tight jeans and with whom I had one or two deeply confusing snog-and-squeezes.

And then there was Rhyl. Sweet, sweet Rhyl. Always happy to drop ‘em, should her classier cousin Blackpool be too busy.

These days, Rhyl is a tragically neglected sprawl of rain-savaged billboards and local Hooch-slugging stir-crazies, but back in the ‘70s, it was a glittering oasis of sugary, neon sleaze. Less modulated and more fun than Blackpool. All the rickety menace of a provincial fairground writ large as some kind of windswept Welsh Las Vegas.

Rhyl, today. Sickboy once drew something rude on this sign. Truth.

I played some fabulously weird bootlegs in the unregulated side-street Rhyl arcades. A Galaxian where the entire bottom row attacked as a single unit, a Dig-Dug mutant called Zig-Zag, a megabastardhard and retina-zappingly fluorescent Donkey Kong called Crazy Kong, countless Pac-Man and Space Invaders hacks…

But the biggie was Llandudno – a placid little Welsh resort near Colwyn Bay. We went there mostly because my nan always came on holiday with us, and ‘70s Llandudno was bland and non-threatening and so really popular with old people – plenty of Senior Citizen’s Fish & Chip specials and a game of Bingo never more than a brief, wheezy shuffle away.

Overlooking the sea-front is a huge, slag heap-style lump called the Great Orme. No trip to Llandudno was complete without a trudge up to the summit in paralysing heat for a quick go on the treacherous Go-Karts, before necking a giant-size Tip-Top and stumbling and skidding back down a steep dirt-track which carried you right into the loving arms of the pier arcade.

Genuine pic of the Ed on the Great Orme Go-Karts, back in a time when that bloke on the
right wasn’t in danger of imminent arrest.

The Llandudno Pier arcade was deep and wide and womb-like. It was absolutely crammed with games – both video, and a few of those ace but spooky fortune-telling and rifle-shooting things. I’d get some money from my folks and, as they indulged in a slow saunter down the length of the pier, with maybe a bit of a sit on the benches at the end, I’d get a glorious half-hour of uninterrupted gaming time, before they turned up to collect me.

On this day, the place was hopping, and I settled on the only machine not being used much: a sub-Star Wars knock-off called Star Fire. It was a loud, immersive 3D space-shooter set into a gigantic sit-down cabinet. After twenty or so minutes of gaping and zapping, I ran out of money and prepared for the customary wander around, watching others play and waiting to be ushered back to our guest house.

As I climbed out of the cab, I noticed something tucked into the far corner of the seat: a clear plastic bank-bag neatly folded around what, for me, was an absolute fortune in ten-pence pieces.

Llandudno sea-front and pier. Best of times, worst of times.

Choices:

A) Spend the money very quickly, but probably not quickly enough before my parents turned up and wanted to know where I’d got it from.

B) Hide the money and save it for the next session when I’d be left alone to spend it at my secret special leisure.

I chose B) and wandered outside, distracted by the discovery, still a little gaming-dazed, dozy and irrational from the heat…

I remember the feeling of being lost with powerful clarity. A beautiful sunny day in a bright and friendly seaside resort was instantly transformed into a hot, oppressive bustle with too much light and lots of looming, leering people in strange hats, unfamiliar shorts, garish T-shirts – jabbering, shouting, lapping at ice-creams…

I’m sure they were, mostly, perfectly decent people. But, the point was – they weren’t my mum or dad or nan.

I remember pushing back the dark thoughts of never seeing my folks again, gripping that bag of 10ps like it was some kind of talisman that would guide me to them. After slouching around, trying to spot a familiar face for about an hour, I wandered in to a ‘Lost & Found’ office where I informed a stern volunteer that I was the thing that was lost and could she help me to be found as soon as possible, please.

Old comic. 10p, free stuff, no celebs. Innocence.

I was given something to drink and handed a pile of old comics. Soon, my haunted-looking parents hurried in and bombarded me with the usual rhetorical questions (Why didn’t I stay where I was? Why did I wander off? Had I any idea how worried they’d been?). For the record: shrug, because, tearful yes (but closer to a ‘not really’).

I surrendered the bag of money, immediately – as if it’d been the cause of all my problems. They promised to hand it in to the police station, but later my dad told me that they just rationed it out as part of my pocket money over the rest of the holiday, as a reward for my honesty (it was only two or three quid).

Last year, I took my three-year-old son to a busy aquarium in Plymouth and, in the time it took to rummage in a bag for something, I turned around and couldn’t immediately see him.

Then, I looked a bit harder and still couldn’t see him.

Then, I looked around a few obvious corners and in nearby niches, and still couldn’t see – or hear – him.

”Look, son. It’s Nemo!”… “Uhuh. Dad, where’s the GBA?”

I think I might have had a panic attack. It was like momentarily switching to Terminator Mode. Most of my irrelevant peripheral vision became wavy and I reeled away, stomping and barging around, unashamedly bellowing his name, squinting through the high-contrast, aquarium-lit gloom. With a stomach-flip, I remembered there was an exit door not too far away, which led out to a busy road…

I was back in Llandudno. Alone in a crowd of indifferent faces. The rush of empathy for my son – wherever he might have been – was dizzying.

When I found him – five eternal minutes later – playing on a set of hard-to-see stairs down the other end of the busy room, I did what my parents did. I got nose to nose and I told him (crying now) what it meant to me that I couldn’t find him – what he meant to me.

Because that’s how it works. That’s all there is.

SICKBOY, August 2004

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