Seven years after closing his last arcade in the island, Arnold Petter has passed away at the age of 84.

During the island’s tourism heyday, he owned 11 arcades in Douglas.

Visitors once accounted for about 80% of his customers.

But Arnold began to close down his arcades with the decline of the island’s tourism industry.

His last arcade was the Leisure Inn, on Strand Street, which was closed down and the property sold off in August of 2012.

With both his father and two uncles owning amusement arcades it was inevitable that he too would enter the industry.

He had lived in the island since the outbreak of the Second World War.

Speaking to the Examiner in 2012, from his home and office in Second Avenue, Douglas, he said: ’I go back to when there were visitors here. And now there are no visitors here. It’s heart-breaking to see it, the decline of the so-called tourist trade.’

white city

Two uncles on his mother’s side - Boyer and Max Myers - had an amusement park at White City on Onchan Head.

And Arnold started helping his father George at his amusement arcade, Funland Limited, in Strand Street, Douglas, at the age of 12.

He spent his summer holidays working as a ’general dogsbody’.

When he left Douglas High School for Boys he worked at White City running the dodgem cars.

He then worked for his father in junior management at Funland.

In 1966, Arnold formed the company Arnold Robert Limited, with a partner whom he bought out several years later.

He said he had not wanted to close Leisure Inn which he had described as ’his baby’ but looking at the takings it was the right thing to do financially.

Legislation prevented Arnold from being able to sell the machines at Leisure Inn to anyone without a licence to operate them and he was forced to destroy about 40 machines so that they were beyond use.

He said: ’One machine was worth £15,000 and I had to put a hammer through it. It was very sad.’