Star-Dust the galloping beauty, the horse who stole our "harts"

With Harts Amusements closing their doors for the final time today, I wanted to share something to commemorate the lovely Star-Dust (or "Brownie" as I named him as a child), the coin operated horse who has stood in the entrance of the arcade for well over 60 years.

Star-Dust was one of the first ever British kiddie rides, manufactured by Walter Streets of Eastbourne. The first Star-Dust was sited at a London department store at Christmas 1953, and production of the machines continued until 1960. While I don't know exactly when our Star-Dust arrived in Bispham, I know he was there before the Hart family bought the arcade and is in fact the oldest machine at Hart's Amusements.

The ride was very popular in its day, and I saw six of them growing up in the 1990s, including my beloved "Brownie", one of the highlights of childhood holidays in Blackpool. The new machines along the Golden Mile couldn't compare to Brownie's old fashioned charm...especially not to a horse mad child who couldn't afford to ride real horses!

Sadly, to the best of my knowledge, "Brownie" is the lone survivor of these horses, certainly the very last to still be in service after all these years. Two of the others were destroyed in Canvey Island when a driver veered off the road and smashed her car into them, and I have no idea where the other three ended up. Because of this, "Brownie" is a very special piece of amusement arcade history, both in Bispham and beyond.

Despite the extreme wind and rain, I made the pilgrimage from London to Bispham last week to see the old boy and say a final farewell just in case this is the end of the road for Star-Dust. It's been incredible talking to local people over the last few days and realising just how many people have happy memories of one fibreglass horse. I am praying that the new owners will keep him there for the continued enjoyment of future generations. If not, hopefully he can at least be sold to someone who will look after him in a museum or private collection, it would be a tragedy for him to be scrapped after all these years.

My love for "Brownie" was one of the things that inspired me to begin researching these machines and create a website and YouTube channel documenting The History of Coin Operated Rides. If you're feeling nostalgic, you can find an old video I took of "Brownie"/Star-Dust here: Star-Dust in 2018