Hastings’ Amusement King bows out after 60 years

Harry Symonds, who has been a major player in the British amusement industry for over 60 years, is finally bowing out after selling his iconic Deluxe Amusement Centre on Hastings seafront.

For nearly six decades Harry has devoted his considerable energies to Hastings, investing millions of pounds into the town’s buildings and his businesses to become one of the most successful local businessmen and a highly respected member of the wider British amusement industry.

Since he first started his Coastal Amusements business in Hastings in 1960 he has, at one time or another, owned and renovated much of the town’s seafront.

When he bought the Victorian Deluxe building in 1969 it was a derelict cinema and he was just 30 years old.

Harry, with a small team of local labourers, set about transforming the building into what became one of the most successful amusement centres on the South Coast.

When he ran a snooker club on the upper floor, it attracted such names as Hurricane Higgins and Steve Davis; when disability laws changed, he overcame the structural difficulties and installed a lift; when popularity of bingo stalled, he invited Jimmy Tarbuck to re-launch a smart new club.

Harry said: “It’s hard to get it right all the time. But the thing is to keep moving forward, working things out in my mind until I get it right.

“I was born in a caravan on a showground in Sheerness and it was a wonderful life.

"But I was sent away, when I was four, for a few years to a boarding school on the Green in St Leonards. It was because of the war, but that was hard.”

In 1966, when his father died, Harry sold off the amusement business in Sheerness and with his wife Anne moved to Hastings where his father, Harry Symonds Senior, had owned Harry’s Old Town Bingo.

During the sixties and seventies Harry’s empire expanded: the Deluxe became the town’s most popular bingo and amusement centre, Out of this World Children’s Complex in White Rock attracted families from around the South East and the Olympia in George Street drew in crowds to its modern amusement arcade downstairs while the upstairs nightclub, Saturday’s, was the place to be.

By then an experienced lobbyist on behalf of the gaming industry, he helped the town achieve Assisted Area Status in recognition of its severe deprivation and helped push through the controversial town centre development.

A long-term member of the British Amusement and Catering Trades Association (BACTA) Harry was elected Vice Chairman, setting up their annual golf competition and raising over £100,000 for the association’s charity.

Harry bought the run-down Stade amusements and boating lake in 1997 which he transformed into a family fun park with children’s rides while he set about making his big dream into reality: a Historic Hastings visitor attraction on the site.

Harry added: “Hastings has been good to me and I really wanted to put something back in to the town that would give it a secure future. I wanted to build something like the Yorvik Centre in York, something that told the story of the Battle of Hastings in an exciting, modern way, that people would visit from around the world.”