Old Technology vs New: Retro Bingo
Modern technology has brought us mobile phones, cheap flights and the ever changing internet. IT has particularly changed the way that we do things, with nearly everything going on line from food shopping to Bingo. But what were these things like before the internet?
I was having a beer with a couple of fellow ex-Bingo callers the other day, reminiscing about the sometimes rough and ready state of live Bingo in the 60’s and 70’s, way before the invention of the internet, personal computers, and online Bingo. We all agreed that Bingo, particularly online, is very civilised, and even land-based live Bingo has pulled itself up by the bootstraps so as to provide an excellent evening’s entertainment these days. But let me take you back in time.
I know there’s that saying “It’s grim up North” and who can forget the Monty Python sketch about Yorkshire men trying to outdo each other in the austerity of their upbringing (“I lived for three months in septic tank, had cold gravel for breakfast, and worked for 23 hours down mine..” etc.). But I have to say that I have been in some pretty challenging environments in the “softy” South!
As a caller’s assistant in a live Bingo game at a place on the coast in Essex, I found myself in a series of connected Nissan Huts (corrugated iron semi-round buildings from the Second World War). The players sat at trestle tables, all too high for the deck chairs that were used as chairs. Looking out from our table on a podium, we couldn’t even see some people’s heads! We had no Bingo randomizer and had a small sack of 90 numbers that were pulled by a non-playing member of the audience (price: a bottle of Mackeson Stout ale).
It was then my caller realised that not only was there no public address system for the main hut we were in, but that there were two other huts full of Bingo players, connected to the main one, by a small archway.
They say “Necessity is the Mother of Invention”. This couldn’t have been truer here. I managed to persuade one of the players, a coastguard, to nip out to get his main and spare Tannoy hand-held speaker and some fresh batteries.
And so the games began… The caller shouted out his numbers to the first hut, and I at the back, then ducked through the archway, switched on the first Tannoy and announced the number to hut two, where another official (he who sold the cards at the start) then did the same with the second Tannoy to announce the number to the final hut.
Amazingly it all went well, was very good natured, and we had a great time. The winner of the big cash prize, miraculously, came from the far away hut number three, and she used her good sense to grab the Tannoy, and amid howls of feedback and crackling, bellowed “BINGO!!” at a volume that echoed around the metal Nissan huts for what seemed like the next ten minutes!
Happy days… but thank heavens things are more sophisticated now!!
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