DAV

When I was child, there was an amusement arcade a short walk from where my Aunt and Uncle lived in a small town in West Wales.

Out of the many machines in this building, I can only remember three. Operation Wolf, Tetris and the one I have the fondest memory of - RoadBlasters.

RoadBlasters was - or rather is - a futuristic game where you have a missile on a car and have to shoot at other cars when driving down a highway. In a way, I'd say the game was a rip-off of the Mad Max movies.

To play this game, you had to sit in a seat and use the steering wheel and accelerator pedal.

I played it a lot and made it a personal challenge to beat the person who had his name on the top of the high score screen.

I went there every day and tried.

I got my name 'DAV' onto the leaderboard but didn't get it placed into the number one slot.

Until one day.

My Uncle, Father and I went there and I headed straight for the machine. I put in a pound and played.

And played.

I reached it. I achieved by mission by getting the number one spot on the high score table and was whooping for joy shouting out to my Dad and Uncle to come over and watch my achievement.

I had still enough lives to get build upon my lead and my Uncle was there cheering me on, fishing his hand into his pockets and inserting more coins into the machine.

I've forgotten the name of the person I wanted to beat, I can't even recall the score I beat him by. What I do remember, however, is that hand reaching into the pocket and getting more money out to assist me in my victory.

DAV made it on the table.