Tim Hunkin

I spent my childhood making things (mostly out of shoeboxes and sticky tape) and endlessly drawing trains and building sites. I trained as an engineer and though I enjoyed the course it was so theoretical it wasn’t helpful for actually making anything. A couple of years after leaving, in 1973 I got a job as a cartoonist for the Observer, a UK Sunday paper. Each strip took about 3 days, leaving the rest of the week to slowly get better at making things. With a large barn as a workshop I started making simple coin operated machines which I took to local fairs and steam rallies. These were simple wooden jokes like ‘The disgusting spectacle’, a figure that picked his nose. In 1982 I met Rex Garrod and together we wrote and devised demonstrations for a tv series called ‘The Secret Life of Machines’ about the history and workings of machines around the home. It was an immediate hit, so we went on to make two more series and the videos are still popular on youtube today. This led to me being commissioned to refurbish a large gallery at London’s science museum. This became ‘The Secret Life of the Home’.(much loved, it sadly just closed last year after 29 years). I then continued working for museums for a few years but became increasingly frustrated by the ever increasing bureaucracy. Fortunately a local businessman was rebuilding Southwold Pier near my workshop and was looking for attractions to put on it. So in 2001 I got a bit of space on his pier to put my early slot machines and so enjoyed being on the pier that I stopped working for museums to make more arcade machines and make a living from them. I’ve now made nearly 50 ever more complicated machines and opened a second arcade in central London called Novelty Automation. The recent machines are satirical, commenting on the many absurdities of the modern world. A few examples: I-Zombie, about phone obsession – The Fulfilment Centre, about humiliating employment (you win if you get fired) – and the latest ‘Dead or Bad’, about the many contradictions of green policy. I get to spend most of my life in my workshop working on interesting problems and then get to see people enjoying what I’ve made. Its addictive so I have no intention of stopping even though I’m 74 now, well past normal retirement age.