A Bingo full of swag!

I have had recently, a reason to look back into my past and take stock, and it was during this time, I was sifting through some of my parents’ old photographs and saw some of our arcade and bingo from the 1970s. And it got me thinking about the prizes which were available to win back then.

We used to get swagmen come around in their big lorries, and my Mum and often myself would go into the back of the lorries and peruse the stock they were selling.

We used to get a lot of holidaymakers who would come onto the holiday camp we were on and they would be there for a week, sometimes two at a time. And then we had our regulars, those who owned their own trailers (caravans) and would come down every weekend.

We would buy a range of things from the very small, to the bigger prizes.

But first, let me explain about our win ticket system.

We would start playing bingo as soon as we could get 7 players. At the time, to play cost 5p for two cards. So for each game of 7 players, we’d get 35p come in.

There were two types of win tickets you could get. ½ win tickets were given out if we had between 5 and 10 players and 1 win tickets were given out if we had 11 more players.

A prize for ½ win would be something small that cost us around 50p to buy. They were usually things like colouring books, small toys....that kind of thing.

A prize for 1 win would cost around £1

But as it was a holiday camp, we encouraged our players to stay and play for bigger prizes. We’d have prizes from 2 wins up to as many as 100 wins.

You would get players who spotted something they fancied that may have been 50 wins, and they’d come in and play bingo whenever there was a session going.  Generally, we’d start at around 2pm and run until 5pm and then start the evening session at 7pm and stay open until the customers dwindled which would usually be around 10.30 pm when the club on the camp closed and husbands who’d been in the club came to collect their wives on their way back to the trailer.

The regulars would come in each weekend and pretty much play in the same seats all the time. For them, the small prizes weren’t what they wanted, they’d want the bigger prizes, thinks that had cost us in excess of £40 (which was a lot in 1971!).

My mum would go into the back of the lorries and come back with all sorts of things. It could be anything from a duffle bag to a canteen of cutlery, a football to a reclining sunbed. There were always the weird and wonderful as well.

Who could forget the framed ‘blue lady’ print, or a set of 6 chunky tumblers. A travel clock, or a set of electric curlers.

There would be kids tricycles and sets of suitcases, cufflinks, Ronson lighters and kids Tommy gun toys.

My favourite prizes would be the K-Tel, Ronco and Arcade that were heavily promoted on British TV at the time. We had a swagman who would come with boxes of them with 24 of a title in a box. I always had the first one from each set to add to my collection.

When I think back, there were some prizes that Mum would buy and I would cringe and say “Whoever’s going to want that?” but she had an uncanny knack of knowing what the players were going to want and we always had players saving up for the oddest things.

I remember the glass fish ornaments – they were like angelfish and were all different colours. I thought they were so ugly and yet at 3 wins, they used to fly off the shelf!

Glass ornaments always used to go well, as did the ‘Wembley’ footballs. Families with kids always got themselves a football so the kids had something to do!

Back in those days, before merchandising became a thing and each football team started selling their own, we’d get sports bags, they’d either be red, white or navy blue and they’d have a transfer of a rosette on the side with a football teams name on the side.

Because of where we were in Somerset, we’d have a lot of people from the Midlands and Bristol come on holiday, so we’d have sports bags with Bristol City and Bristol Rovers on. We’d have Birmingham City and Derby County and we’d also have ones with Manchester United, Manchester City, Liverpool and Leeds United, popular teams at the time – they all looked exactly the same apart from the team name. If you look carefully at the bingo photos, you'll possibly see one!

Lamps and light shades used to go well as well as travel and wall clocks. In fact, any household stuff would go well. We’d have nylon bedspreads and candy-striped flannelette sheets, gas kettles (electric ones were only for the rich!), 12 or 18 piece dinner sets, sets of mugs with mug tree and so much more.

For the kids, we’d have space hoppers and pogo sticks, as well as table tennis sets and tennis rackets as well as badminton kits. And of course, we cuddly bears....and the big thing of the mid-70s, clackers!

In fact, I can’t think of much we didn’t have. Reading back over the things I’ve mentioned so far, it feels like a 1970s edition of the Generation Game prize display!

The funny this though is although so many of the things we had as prizes at the time were so naff, I see them now on auction sites and they’re selling for decent money. And those things that I used to roll my eyes at when Mum came into the bingo with them, I see them now and I feel a warmth towards them and they always make me smile.

I’m lucky to have so many happy memories of that time when I was just a kid, but also learning about what it took to run a business.

I’d love to go back and do it all again!

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