Fruit Machine Chat

http://stepanov.lk.net/mnemo/dom25e.html

A fairly old and uninteresting chapter from Dominic O'Brien's memory book that I located online.

Did the old machines really only have 1,000 questions? Good grief, the pickings must have been rich if so.

Do "Simon" or "F.E.Y." frequent this board I wonder? Anyone on here know them?

Oh yeah, and is the Lake District really a destination for serious players? The mind boggles - I've always thought towns are way better than the country for finding machines.

Can't say Simon rings any bells, but FEY was indeed a legend. He lived out of that van for about 3 years and packed in after he made £500,000.

He played 365 days a year, 13-14 hr days.

He was practically certifiable by the end of the 3 years, such was his dislocation from normal life.

This sounds like the 'poacher' because he wore a green wax jacket. He came apparently from Manchester and visited the south coast on numerous occasions. One machine player originates from the Lake District now resident in Kingston, London , his name is Mick and the game that brought him to prominence was genius. Saw him once in a pub many years ago playing Beat The Clock and he was good.

This guy actually used the initials FAY not FEY!!

He was very good, but he was not alone. Other sets of initials were frequent: YAS, MAT, TOM, IWH, GPS, BBA, GTM and so on.
He played Give Us A Breaks which held £40, twenty-eight in pound coins, twelve in 50P's. Four jackpots to empty them, even mini messages were posted i.e. ITS MAT NOT YAS, that sort of thing.

I think his fame was in his sheer hard work, early machines were hard to find, hence the legend that was Gilliver! Other players, myself included, took the view that you had to enjoy some of the winnings!
Talking of which its been so busy recently I've had a day off!!

tom was Tom Redpath from Eastleigh, Hampshire. Last known job Sky engineer.Although there are more than one Tom in the country!

i do remember seeing FAY/FEY on quiz machines but i was barely out of nappies; let alone old enough to go to the pub, let alone old enough to have garnered sufficient SWP skills.

i also remember the scrabble standalone where it forced you to play things like ART or DABS when you knew full well that BASTARD was on your rack. still, to a 16 year-old, a tenner was a lot of money. i used to go to the pub, buy a pint of cheap bitter, win the SWP and go to the offie for a brown paper bag full of zoider. after drinking which i'd get thrown out of the karaoke bar for being a teenage drunk.

Four jackpots to empty them, even mini messages were posted i.e. ITS MAT NOT YAS, that sort of thing.

Since I made this post I have been given some sad information.
Mike Revel AKA MAT, AKA 'Grimsby Mick' recently passed away after a long illness.
Altough he had separate business interests Mike was both one of the first and lasting genuine pros, travelling widely and very successfully for over twenty years. He had something of every player in his make-up. The money was important, but Mike always had to have fun. He was a lovely man.

He leaves a wife and two children and I am sure that anyone on this forum who knew Mike, or knew of him will give a few moments thought to them and Mike's memory.

I heard about Mick last week from a mutual friend. Shame, he was a lovely bloke.

sorry to hear about the sad death of mick revell used to bump into him
frequently in most holiday resorts circa 2000 -01doing battle over the millionaire tournaments in the arcades skegness ,great yarmouth,blackpool,llandudno, rhyl and even newquay cornwall one hot summers day sadly missed .