Imagine if magic was real, and by some awesome circumstance I was granted a single wish. Suppose, for that wish, I decided upon the following:
“I would like to be transported back in time to Blackpool, England in early May 1977, with only the means to live comfortably from that point onwards for the rest of my life.”
I imagine, at first, it may be a bit strange. No cellphones, no internet. No-one I knew. I’d have money, a nice house in which to live, and health. I’d take a week or so to get used to England in the late 1970s. I’d eat a lot of fish and chips. I buy a cat and name her Amy Pond.
It would be early summer, the start of the tourist season. A few weeks after I ‘arrive’ Star Wars opens in theatres. I’d be there on opening day. I’d buy a ‘May The Force Be With You’ t-shirt and wear it to meetings of the Doctor Who appreciation society. I’d reveal at one of these that I have an ‘inside contact’ at the BBC, and the first new show of the upcoming season 17 would be called Horror Of Fang Rock. They’d be amazed.
Winter would come. I’d stay home mostly, watching Tomorrow People, but occasionally scuttling through the frigid weather to play the brand new game AD&D with friends. Every now and then I’d go to the movies as well. I expect Close Encounters of The Third Kind to be good, but find myself enjoying The Spy Who Loved Me even more.
A year has passed and I’m heading back to Blackpool on the train from Birmingham. I’d arrived early and caught the opening day screening of Superman at the Electric on Station Street. It was strangely better than when I’d seen it 34 years earlier. I spent the afternoon in a quiet stroll, wondering should I start following the soccer, before a light dinner at the Rum Runner club, listing to their resident band, Duran Duran. The singer – Steven Duffy – is ok, but I reminded myself to return in a couple of years and check up on them. The train is slow in getting me home and I miss the first episode of the new BBC1 show Blake’s 7. It’s a good thing I’d seen it before, since I already know it’s not going to be repeated for a very long time…
Later in the year winter returns to England. The Blackpool Illuminations are still on, and I religiously walk the golden mile almost every day. There have been mutterings in the newspapers, and what I have been looking for finally arrives. My first game of Space Invaders in 34 years – my first videogame in almost 18 months – is like heaven. At this point I feel that once again I have entered the golden age.
In 1979 I enroll in Cambridge, essentially buying my position with no regard for the tutelage just so I can be on site to witness the filming of an upcoming Doctor Who episode called Shada. It is a bittersweet moment. I spend much of my time on the golden mile, working in the arcade I now run. My insistence to have every arcade cabinet available makes the place a bit of a money sink, but I don’t care. Even though I’m running out of money I have a feeling I can turn things around in the near future. Late in the season a struggling band – Adam & The Ants – plays a local club to a small crowd. They are supporting an upcoming album, and they have the spark of greatness. ‘This boy”, I know, “will go far.”
Everyone’s excited in 1980. I’m nostalgic. The Empire Strikes Back becomes everyone’s favourite film ever made, but I’m almost too busy becoming the best Tempest player in Blackpool to notice. I can feel the wave of history approaching me quickly though and dive right in when I buy my first home computer – an Apple II GS – and a copy of the new game Ultima. I had to drive down to London to do this (in my new Aston Martin v8 Vantage) and of course I stop off at a pub in Canning to see a young band – Depeche Mode – play a motley set of new wave and Bowie covers. They are, perhaps, the best they’ll ever be.
The II GS is a promising product, but when Apple goes public late in 1980 I hold back. I have feeling now’s not the best time, and instead sink a few thousand pounds into IBM.
Shortly after my 42nd birthday (in 1981) Tom Baker hands the reigns over to that young vet. There’s no turning back from the 1980s now. MTV has started in America, Raiders Of The Lost Ark is in the cinema and NASA just launched the first space shuttle. My arcade is pulling in the cash, and I convert the upstairs to a ‘computer game’ shop. Vic-20s and (even still) 2600s are flying out the door, and I feel almost bad selling them since I know by next year they’ll be almost obsolete. But then life’s going to be like that almost forever now. Charles marries Diana and it seems so sad to me. I stay up late playing side two of my new vinyl Speak And Spell album whilst enjoying the new Wizardry game on my Apple. Amy Pond is older and fat, and likes sitting in the shop window and watching the trams go by…
I’m not interested in selling books, but make an exception – in 1982 – for a new publication called The Warlock Of Firetop Mountain. I can barely keep them in. My shop is so successful selling gamebooks, ZX Spectrums and C64s that I have to hire a bunch of kids just so I can find the time to whittle my life away playing Robotron in the arcade downstairs. All the kids are wearing Yoda t-shirts and eating Chicken McNuggets. When I see The Birthday Party performing live in London Nick Cave is so strung out I can barely believe he’s got a long and successful career ahead of him. On my shelf – next to a dozen or so plastic-cape Jawa figures – is the first Game And Watch sold in Britain.
I must keep my eye on events in Japan.
And so turns the gears of the early 1980s. Depeche Mode, Erasure and Alphaville (who I see live in 1985 in London). I now write columns (under pseudonyms of course) for Crash and Warlock magazines. My arcade is the biggest in England (possibly even the world?) and a major attraction on the golden mile. The game store above is now two stories, with video games (including the hottest of them all: the NES) in one and role-playing games in the other. Although my store runs the biggest Warhammer games in England I am rarely there. My time is spent on a grand tour around Europe in my Rolls Royce Silver Spur, making sure to catch a Kraftwerk show in Germany and A-Ha up in Norway. I’m back in England full-time in 1985, and am in the front row of the ‘last’ gig by The Sisters Of Mercy before the band split. The feeling of nostalgia is almost overwhelming.
In 1986 Challenger explodes, Chernobyl melts down, Black Celebration is on my record player and an imported copy of Final Fantasy is in my Famicom. I even had to import a Japanese TV to play it. My thoughts drift more to Japan around this time, and I think fondly of Tokyo. In 1987 the first cracks appear in the Berlin wall (naturally I am there to see Reagan speak), Sylvestor McCoy makes his first appearance as The Doctor and the tanking of cassette-game prices means my video game shop sees a slight downturn as customers decide whether or not to switch over to the NES. I buy my first compact disc later that year – Music For The Masses – and when I first play it the feeling of deja-vu is acute.
In 1988 I put the arcade up for sale. Many of the older games have now been moved – permanently – to my estate and redemption games have taken Blackpool by storm. My heart is no longer in them, and in fact is moving away from England itself. Zzap 64 is still publishing, but with the demise of the C64 it’s hardly the same magazine. I now have several Japanese televisions and have begun to import anime and (many) games. I’m learning Japanese as well. I spend the morning of my 50th birthday burying Amy Pond (who died in my arms) and the evening in Oxford as the oldest man in the audience of a Fields Of The Nephilim concert. Later in the year the Internet stops being a closed network. I can feel the world changing.
1988 slides into 1989. My businesses sell. I shutter the estate, selling the Rolls and Aston Martin but locking up the Sinclair C5. I’m a very wealthy man by now, but my fortune reaches new heights when I sell all my IBM stock and buy some (what I know to be) future-proof shares in the ailing Apple corporation. I board my private jet on a one-way trip to the next phase of my life to be spent living in Tokyo, Japan. On the flight, as I play my brand new imported Game Boy, I spend the time thinking about my younger self, half a world away, about to graduate from high school. I’ve avoided him all these years, but make a note that when I land to anonymously send him a pineapple in a box.
“That should keep him guessing”, I think with a smile.
