Looking back at the era before mobile phones and digital cameras makes you realise how precious memories are. Most often, we have no way of revisiting or even checking our internalised view of the past, beyond reminiscing with fellow travellers. The only way to ‘see’ those golden moments is through the foggy lens of our mind’s eye. Of course, when photos of the dim and distant past do turn up, those which are objectively mundane are often the most exciting – precisely because they open a window onto scenes that are so unlikely to have been preserved.
In the previous ‘episode’ in this series, we took a long-distance view of the early arcade scene in Kilsyth. In this second episode, we’ll have a look at how that ecosystem grew (for me!) to encompass Falkrik and Stirling.
I’ve been guided in this journey by the archived Yellow Pages in the National Library of Scotland in Edinburgh. But many hours of trawling through internet search engines has revealed another invaluable resource – Falkirk Council’s Heritage Collections. These include thousands of photos, kept in hard-copy in the Museums at Callendar House and Kinneil. Better still, quite a few of them have also been digitised and are now freely available online. As we shall see, two of them got me quite excited. OK, so they’re not quite ‘Elvis sightings’. But for me at least, they’re close enough!
In June 1984, at the grand old age of 12, I said goodbye to P7, and with it Kilsyth Primary School. Some of the other kids phrased it rather differently, screaming ‘freedom’ in the style of the Bash Street Kids, as they ran out the door for the last time. How little they knew.
6 and 1/2 weeks, and one glorious summer later, I started S1 – first year – at the local secondary school, Kilsyth Academy. From then on, my daily wanderings were restricted to the north side of the town. If I wanted to go down to the Main Street, it would have to happen after school or at the weekend. By then, however, my interests were developing in other directions. Why go down the town, when I could bomb off up the glen, and practice with my home-made composite bow? Besides, with the new arcade shot down its prime, the chance to invade ‘spacies’ in the evenings had been relegated, once again, to the realm of fantasy.
OK, so the Main Street still had other delights to offer, but those had begun to dry-up too. From my perspective, the range and availability of ‘good stuff’ (cream-cakes excepted!) began to shrink. Obviously, like most of my peers, I spent an increasing amount time playing ‘back-up’ copies of slightly out-of-date home computer games. That’s not to say we didn’t hanker after the new releases. Shannon’s the Newsagents may have stocked a limited range of Mastertronic games. But the ones they had were no match for the Ocean and US Gold titles stocked by the larger branches of Boots (the Chemist!), and John Menzies in the neighbouring towns.
Boots had some surprisingly good offers on from time to time. The Falkirk branch was known for marking down video games. I remember picking up the twin-cassette-case-version of Gauntlet II for £2.99 in early 1988. The Stirling branch had a habit of doing the same with LPs. I was very pleased to pick up Duran Duran’s Decade on vinyl for the same price – before the decade itself was out. On looking back, that all seems a bit strange. Had the company been sold a batch of faulty label guns? Had the staff made a mistake? Who knows. Perhaps we shouldn’t look that particular gift horse too closely in the mouth…
I still liked comics. But from 1985, the only comics I needed were 2000 AD, and its Judge Dredd spin-offs. Anyone else read those? Remember the bizarre systems they had for working out the cover-date? 2000AD claimed to appear in orbit every Monday. But they hit the shelves on a Thursday, a couple of weeks before the date printed on the cover. What was that all about?
At the same time, I remained an avid consumer of computer-game magazines. In Kilsyth, the shops were small, and the choice, limited. The process of buying a mag was almost a shot-in-the-dark experience. It played out like this: Go in, have a quick look at the covers, pick up the most attractive mag, buy it, leave shop. If you spent too long looking, ie. more than 2 minutes, the folks behind the counter would start glowering. In the relative anonymity and busy-ness of the bigger shops elsewhere, however, I could spend pretty-much as long as I liked ‘checking’ the content of any given month’s crop of computer-game magazines, before deciding which one was deserving of my pocket money. You may well scoff, but that was a serious matter. All of a sudden, the mighty Computer and Video Games had become a lot more colourful, and before long faced stiff competition from the likes of Your Sinclair, and Zzap64! Frustratingly, the increasingly out-of-touch retailers in Kilsyth never seemed to stock those things – even when they were sure-fire investments selling 100,000 or more copies a month. They would have taken a subscription, of course. But making that kind of committment in a such a fast-moving world was impossible.
Not long after that, I was totally swept away by the role-playing games phenomenon, and the whole scene that went along with it. In the beginning, I just couldn’t get enough of White Dwarf magazine. In the early years this was a wonderfully broad-based resource for the RPG-community. I remained captivated until about 1988, when it had been transformed into a corporate rag for Games Workshop products. But even that made no dent on my love for the ever-growing range of Citadel Miniatures. I’d first encountered lead-based fantasy miniatures on holiday with my family in Dumfries in September 1984. Back in those days, they were more amateurish than not, and had molded bases. Still, as a massive Tolkien fan, I found myself hovering over the cusp of a purchase. I can’t remember now why I didn’t close the deal. I imagine there was an arcade round the corner or somesuch.
A few months later, in the run-up to Christmas, I was dragged into the Goldbergs’ department store in Candleriggs, Glasgow by my Mum. On the way in (and out), I was dazzled by the array of painted figures in the window of the Dragon and George role-playing-games shop across the road. After discovering White Dwarf, I was champing at the bit to go back. But Glasgow was a big city, and a relatively long and expensive bus ride away from my home town. For the time being, as a 12-year-old, I wouldn’t be going in on my own, and had to bide my time for a few weeks until the Easter holidays in 1985. My first ‘blister’ was a packet of ME44 Uruk Hai orcs – of the far-superior (in my opinion!) slotta-base variety. Sadly, 2 of the 3 in that pack later succumbed to lead-rot (yes, it’s a thing). The blister in the picture is an early e-Bay acquisition. I should probably get it back on there and use the proceeds to pay down the mortgage!
Those were things that never graced the shelves of any retail outlets in Kilsyth. But they were available in the neighbouring towns of Falkirk, Stirling, and Cumbernauld – not to mention the big smoke itself, Glesga – as we called Glasgow – to which we will return in the next episode.
Falkirk
The town of Falkirk lies about 12 miles to the east of Kilsyth. In the 1980s and 1990s, it was a popular destination for shopping and recreation.
Falkrik had a fairly limited an erratic supply of fantasy miniatures, but it was way better than the big fat nothing on offer in Kilsyth. There was one shop, away down Grahams Road, which sometimes had some blisters of Citadel’s Middle Earth range of ‘slotta-base’ figures. That was a bit of a pilgrimmage, reserved for the rare occasions when more time was available. At one point, I seem to remember it was joined by long-time retailer of objects d’art, The Gilded Cage. There was also a wee shop tucked away behind the steeple on the High Street, whose name escapes me, which kept a stock of Citadel stuff for a while around 1985.
Fortunately for me, this change in perspective co-incided rather nicely with a switch in my parents’ food-shopping habits. In the early 80s, they alternated their bigger weekly shop between Fine Fare in Bishopbriggs, Woolco in Cumbernauld, and a few other places, usually on a Saturday. But by 1984/5 they had settled down to a regular Thursday-afternoon trip to Tesco on Callendar Road in Falkirk. They usually went straight after school.
One day, in late spring 1986, I went along for the ride, but instead of dragging round behind them, or waiting outside the shop – as I usually did – I asked if I could go out for a look at the other shops while they were getting the food. Being only too glad to get me out of the way, they said yes, and I zoomed off to John Menzies.
Falkirk Leisure Centre
Falkirk, in those days was great. They had shops to cater for all your computer-games, magazines, and records needs. The main attraction was the Aladin’s Cave of cool stuff, known as John Menzies – part of a once familiar, but now deceased chain of high-street stores.
The big Menzies on the High Street had a great range of shizz, including all the latest home computer software. For a while, ‘though, there was a secondary branch just round the corner at the top of Vicar Street. Nowadays, that shop is home to a Usave grocers. Back-in-the-day, however, it specialised in newspapers, sweeties, cigarettes, and – obviously – a shelf of Ultimate: Play the Game cassette-software for the ZX Spectrum!
Please note, other newsagents were available!
There was also a fantastic old-school shop between Menzies and the Falkirk Leisure Centre – the High Street Newsagents – that always seemed to have a pile of 2000 AD back-issues. There was another newsagents down beside ASDA on Newmarket Street, whose name escapes me, but which always kept a fantastic selection of specialist computer mags, that even the all-powerful John Menzies didn’t stock. This came in very handy when the time came to investigate what the burgeoning 16-bit era had to offer. I also remember a wee grocers shop on one of the back roads skirting round to the south of the High Street, where the old newsprint comics were pegged up on a washing line, strung up across the inside of the shop! But what was it called?
Photo montage of Falkirk town centre in the 1980s. See if you can spot the C5! Talking of which, check this out from the Kilsyth Chronicle in March 1985:
Anyway, back to late spring, 1986.
As I headed back down the High Street towards Callendar Road and Tesco, a familiar sight came into view. Have a look at the picture below. Look down the pavement on the left-hand-side of the road. That’s the way I would doubtless have walked to avoid being injured by the old dears with their reinforced shopping bags. I’m not sure what they kept in those things. But judging by the bruises I acquired on my legs, it was more likely to have been breeze blocks than messages (general shopping). In the middle of the picture, you can see a lorry. To the left of that is a lampost. And just to the left of that, a bit further in the distance, is something special… which we can see more clearly in the next image.
It’s Falkirk Leisure Centre, fresh from the before times!!!!
It’s wishful thinking, I know, but the two, blurry guys in the centre of that photo look an awful lot like brother and me. That’s the kind of clobber we wore in those days: Short shorts, sleeveless t-shirts, and white towelling sports-socks. Gotsta lurve those white toob-socks (I still swear by ’em). On the other hand, we were hardly unique in that respect. But now take another look at that old photo of Tesco taken on the very same day.
Look to the right of centre along the railing. It looks like the taller of the two guys we saw in front of the Falkirk Leisure Centre is hanging about outside the shop. That could be me, with my brother crouching down beside me, waiting for our parents!
Wow!
Even if that isn’t us, the scene would have been pretty much identical.
Anyway, on the way back down to Tesco that day, I walked past the so-called Falkirk ‘Leisure’ Centre’, as I had done quite a few times before. This was no centre of sportiness, or physical activity. I think I’d known it had spacies in it for quite some time by that point. But I’m pretty sure it also had an ‘over-somethings-only’ policy (14?), which I was – until then at least – obviously under. On this ocassion, however, the front door was propped open, and as I passed by, it was as my ears had been physically grabbed by the other-worldly tones of arcade-game music. One screeching u-turn and stealthy entrance later, I was in, and completely agog!
I only had time for a brief explore – but that first visit brought me face-to-face, for the first time, with the magical Ghosts’n’Goblins. Being obsessed with role-playing games at the time, it ticked so many of the boxes in my gaming itinery, I could hardly contain myself. After that, I made sure I went with my parents to Tesco every chance I got!
This was a proper arcade. Almost as good as the ones you got at the seaside. It had at least a dozen, maybe more video games confined to the right-hand-side as you went in. The other half had a small cafeteria, several pool tables and some fruit machine. The change desk was right at the back. The ambience was completed with the proper arcade carpet underfoot, and the obligatory, thick blanket of cigarette-smoke descending from above.
The selection of games was amazing. The first time I went back in, I was captivated by Sinistar, with its creepy soundbites – ‘I hunger!’ I’m sure it was the cockpit version too. They also had Shaolin’s Road – the only place I saw it in the wild. The martial-arts theme continued with Karate Champ. Over the next year or two, I was also introduced to perhaps the greatest video game of all time – RYGAR – better even than the ossum Robotron2084. The chunky, harmonised thwacks it made when your powered-up fantasy-warrior took out three baddies at once was divine! There was also a fantastic vertical shooter called Tokio, which let out a peal of meaty bass-thumps when you dropped a coin in the slot. Once again, that was the only time I saw that game in an arcade. This place had some pretty exclusive gets.
There was also Tiger Heli, then Flying Shark, and I’m pretty sure they also has Wonderboy, and later-on Wonderboy 3. Something I wonder about, though, is what kind of cabs they were in. From the mid- to late-80s, loads of UK arcades were stocked with beautiful (or ‘generic’, depending on your perspective) Goliath cabinets made by a company called Electrocoin. While I’m sure at least some of the cabs in the FLC were Electrocoin models, I don’t think they were all Goliaths.
The reason? I’m 6’4″, which sometimes complicates the playing of arcade games. By 1986, I was already getting quite tall. But in the FLC there was no need for me to adopt a preposterous ‘arcade stance’ to avoid getting blinded by the marquee, and – even more importantly – to actually see the screen. On straining my grey material, I seem to remember a low plinth running along the wall from the front window. Maybe the machines on top were jacked-up Electocoin Midis?
After a hiatus of a couple of years (more on that in a future episode), I started going back to Falkirk about ’93-4. By then, the number of video games seemed to have been reduced… to allow for an even tighter concentration of heavy-hitters! It was here that I first saw Daytona USA, in a two-player configuration no less – the beginners’ track on which is well-balanced, ‘drifty’ racing-perfection. I also enjoyed Virtua Cop, and latterly, before I left the area, the now mythical holographic cabinet, Holosseum: Time Traveller. While the holographic effect was pretty convincing, the game itself was pretty ‘meh’.
The Falkirk Leisure centre is now long gone. It’s been at least a decade since that row of buildings was remodelled. If you look carefully at the two images above, you can see that the windows of the ‘Fireaway’ takeaway correspond to the front door of the FLC. The Tandoori restaurant to its right has been renovated out of existence. However, there’s still a wee takeaway to the right of that. Back-in-the-day, this was the Golden Fryer chippie, which became a regular part of my Saturday visits to the FLC. It was there that I was introduced to the east-of-Scotland-phenomenon of ‘so’n’sos’ (salt and sauce). That’s when you get your chips drenched in a vinegary brown sauce. Very nice, it is too! Funny how Falkirk bears to the east like that. The same is true of the local accent. There was a lilt in the voices of the Falkirk bairns back then (Stirling too), that we didn’t have 12 miles to the west.
Park Avenue
Later in 1986, it must’ve been late July, I’d been at the Canon cinema in Falkirk with friends. Someone’s dad had given us a lift in to go and see The Karate Kid Part II. I seem to remember there was a special ticket-price for the summer holidays – 50p a pop for kids! That’s less than £1.50 in 2023 money! Can you imagine!
I didn’t go to the pictures very often growing up, but the big screen experience made a big impression on me. I absolutely loved it! My darling wife is reluctant to go to the cinema unless there’s something on she wants to see – which I suppose is fair enough. But I’d happily take a chance on a duffer just for the cinematic ambience. The seats in the Canon may not have been quite as comfy as the ones we’ve become used to in more recent years. There were no leather sofas, or even reclining chairs. To balance that out, we did get pre-film adverts ushered in by the Pearl & Dean promoters’ anthem, featuring some Indian restaurant we’d never go to. But I digress…
On leaving the cinema, still buzzing from the triumphant climax of the movie, we had a few minutes left before we were supposed to meet our lift back. Leaving through the fire exit on Vicar Street, we spied an interesting venue across the road called Park Avenue. This was clearly an arcade – of sorts. Why had we never noticed it before? Imagine – just imagine – it had… Karate Champ??!?!?!?! After a build up like that, there was no way we couldn’t go and explore. It was obvious from the blacked out windows, and the ‘No under 16s’ sign in the doorway, that we’d hit upon a den of ‘amusements with prizes’. Which was disappointing. In the days when most folks took authority a bit more seriously, that also threw further investigation into doubt. At 14, I was the oldest. But to me, the electronic noises ringing out above the din didn’t sound like they came from gambling machines. Emboldeded by the siren song of video-game-entertainment, we waited until the cashier was distracted talking to friends, and dashed in and around the corner… into an alcove of video games. Paradise!
I was lucky enough to come back a few weeks later, I think with my brother. That time, however, the cashier spotted us playing the spacies and kicked us out. No under-16s, you see, ‘Kin ye no read? Oot!’ was the extent of our welcome. Blimmin jobsworth! I did go back a few times later in the 80s and in the early 90s. Park Avenue didn’t have a lot of video games, about 10 perhaps? But there were a few decent shooters. Latterly, there was definitely one of the R-Type offerings, Leo, I think, as well as a Raiden, or a Varth. But I just can’t bring them into focus.
Did they have Karate Champ in 1986? I’d like to say yes, but sadly, my memory fails me. I suspect not. In any case, just as we were preparing to feed the slots with coinage, my friend’s dad came in and gathered us up. He was in a hurry to get home, and we didn’t have enough cash for the bus back, so off we went. Bah! This guy liked his music. I had expected some Jimmy Hendrix in the car on the way back, but instead, we listened to the radio. In writing this, I had a strange flashback. One of the tunes we’d heard was this (I’ve just looked it up). At the time, I thought it was a throwback to the 50s. According to Wikipedia, however, it was actually released in 1986!
There were other video games in Falkirk. One day in the run up to Christmas, I went in on the bus with my Granny to do my Christmas shopping. She noticed, just before we arrived at the town centre that the Park hotel had a lunchtime special on, so we went there later for something to eat. They only had 10-Yard Fight, but I indulged in a game or two while my gran had a cup of tea.
As the years went on I started making regular trips to Falkirk on the bus myself. Usually to browse in the shops, and hang-out like yoofs still do. We’d get the Midland Bluebird, no. 27 bus, either to Newmarket Street or the Bus Station. The former was handy for the pictures or the newsagents (and some reading material for the trip home!). The latter was a lot close to the Falkirk Leisure Centre. Sadly, bus services these days seem to have dwindled away to almost nothing. With the substantial drop in footfall, it’s little wonder that the shops in and around the station have largely gone out of business and been boarded up. The bus station itself is pretty much derelict. Walking round it again was more than a wee bit depressing.
Stirling
Until 1975, when Scotland’s counties were dismantled (that’s right readers in England, there have been no counties in Scotland for half a century), Kilsyth was a part of Stirlingshire. I was born in Stirling maternity hospital. With the old ‘county town’, Stirling a mere 14 miles to the northeast, connections remained strong. Towards the end of the 1980s, my field of vision drifted westwards, and I temporarily lost touch with Falkirk. In addition to their weekly shop, however, my parents would ocassionally head up to Stirling. When I got the chance, which wan’t often, I’d tag along with them.
In those days, Stirling had a thriving town centre. One of the main attraction was its two-storey John Menzies – where I’d bought my first copy of White Dwarf magazine, there was also a Boots, a slew of the usual clothes and knick-knack shops, and a bona fide shopping mall – the Thistle Centre. In the picture above, you can see the entrance leading to Menzies to the left of Marks and Spencers. On the left-hand-side of that entrance going in, was a bakers called Oliver’s. Sadly, what once was Oliver’s is now Greggs.
While it lasted, Oliver’s (nothing to do with Jamie) was part of a chain. They ran a catchy TV-advertising campaign featuring an animation and music riffing off (/ripping off!) Lionel Bart’s musical, Oliver! It sold the most delicious crusty bread, which you could smell before you saw the shop itself. Gorgeous!
Now, I may already have mentioned, I like my bread. These past few years, despite my best efforts, I’ve found myself slipping into some rather effete bread-eating habits. Where I live now (which isn’t Kilsyth – I’ve been gone for 30 years!), we have an artisan baker that sells the most delicious olive sourdough bread. It’s so good I could eat an entire loaf. But it’s not crusty the way bread used to be. The closest approximation these days would be some supermarkets take on ‘tiger bread’. But even that isn’t the same. Whatever happened to proper crusty bread?!
On the hill up towards the castle, the streets change name as they climb higher. On Baker Street, or was it Bow Street (?), there was a popular childcare shop called Cradle Care. This shop was in a row of ancient, tall buildings, with units much taller than they were wide. Above two (or possibly three!) floors of prams and shawls, was a final floor rammed full of toys and games. They had a great stock of Airfix soldiers and model-kits, and plenty of Star Wars figures. By 1986, however, as the Star Wars craze began to head the way of all things, the owners decided to cut their losses with a fire-sale of NOS figures. I’m sure they were selling them for 50p each in the end. In retrospect, I’d like to have invested a tenner or two, and kept them to sell on eBay. But untroubled as I was by the knowledge of this dystopian future, I didn’t bother. I had no need for that old tat! By this point, you see, they also had a well-stocked, spinning-rack brimming with the latest Citadel Miniatures.
Sadly, one could only spend so long salivating over the miniatures, before it started to look impolite. So, I had to bulk-out my visits to Stirling with other activities. Reading the magines in Menzies was one. Checking out Boots for reduced-proce home-computer games or LPs was another. But there was also the old standby of going off the beaten track to find amusement arcades to haunt. I found two.
Truth be told, I had trouble remembering exactly where those two places were. It’s been a veeeery long time since I was last at either, and they have, in any case, long since been wiped from the face of the High Street. This is where the Yellow Pages collections in the National Library came in handy. One of them had to be Lothian Amusements at 14 Friar Street, and the other, the strangely-named Castle ‘Leisure’ Centre at 101 Barnton Street. Frustratingly, I forgot to look up Cradle Care. Doh! Maybe I’ll go back and find it for a future update.
You can see roughly where they all were on the map below.
Lothian Amusements
Exactly when Lothian Amusements finally vanished, I cannot say. My best guess as far as video games are concerned would be the late 1980s.
As you can see from the image below, from the ‘street view’ feature on Google Maps’, it’s now a restaurant – Jimmy Zheng’s. I’ve never been there, but I’m sure it’s very nice. It’d have to be to fit in with the other more genteel outlets on Friar Street. In the late 1980s, however, I seem to remember that things were a wee bit more ‘exciting’ round that way. Possibly because of the arcade…
From memory, Lothian Amusements was quite a big venue, with a mixture of video arcade games and fruit machines. The fruit machines were upstairs, and the videos down an open staircase from the centre of the ground floor in a large basement area. There may also have been pool tables down there. This smokey cavern also had a bit of a menacing edge. But with at least a dozen games, that kindof offset the risk in my tiny mind!
My memories of that place are vague. But then again, I only went in a few times. That was partly because I was rarely in stirling after I’d discovered it. But I suspect there may also have been a more strictly enforced minimum-age policy, which I had less success dodging. I’m sure they had a reasonably up-to-date selection of games. What that included, I’m sorry to say, largely escapes me. The one thing that does stick out in my mind, however, is Sega’s S.D.I., with it’s topical Cold War theme, and weird controls featuring a joystick with a button on top.
Castle Leisure Centre
Around the time that Lothian Amusements lost its appeal, closed it doors, or both, I followed my nose down Barnton Street to the Castle Leisure Centre – another one of those sketchy appropriations, which had little to do with sports or ‘healthy’ recreation. The Yellow Pages had it at 101 Barnton Street, where Betfred’s is today, which is roughly the right place in my mind, and the site of what you would imagine was a suitably large building.
Perhaps I’m getting old, perhaps my synapes are discombobulating, but I was sure that the venue where I used to enjoy video games was in one of the old shop units, on the same side of the street but a wee bit closer to the Thistle Centre? None of those units are particularly big. But in my memory, it wasn’t a big arcade. I’m sure it only had half-a-dozen or so video games. They may not have had a lot of machines, but it’s where I discovered Rampage, and where I had a lot of fun with Shadow Dancer until at least the early 1990s. Perhaps it wasn’t the Castle Leisure Centre after all, but aonther one of those ephemeral arcades that never appeared in the records, for reasons we explored in the last episode?
As much as I enjoyed the delights of Falkirk and Stirling, the wares (and warez) on offer were relatively limited. As time went by it also became clear that the supply was unreliable. By 1987, as a strapping (alright, gangly) 15-year old, I knew the future lay in the bright lights of the big city. For me, that meant Glasgow. In a flash, I’d moved on from John Menzies and Boots to the Virgin Megastore, Tower Records, and – eventually – the infamous Barras market…
Next up – Glasgow…
In the meatime, if you grew up in or near Falkrik or Stirling, or – like me – used to haunt their video arcades, please share your memories below. Perhaps you can help fill-in some of the gaps, or correct some of the gaffes in my version of the story?
Arcade Odysseus 