Michael Green at UDC and I keep sending one-another notes: "Well, that’s another one gone...” and always with great sadness. Now dubbed the InterGame Obituaries Department, it is hardly a role I relish as my old friends disappear into the Great Arcade in the sky.
But where do you begin with someone like Shane Breaks? A colourful character, certainly and at one stage in his 75 years he was literally larger than life. I went through all of Shane’s life phases with him, always on the phone, by email or face-to-face at trade shows, lamenting the disasters, triumphant at the successes. It was never, never a boring relationship.
I met him first in 1967 when I joined Coin Slot in the UK and he was with Streets Automatics down on the south coast. He was ever the lover of the rich life and insisted that we went to a famous restaurant named, I think, The Hungry Monk.
After that, we wined and dined around the world, in New York, Chicago, London, Paris, Tokyo, wherever the industry took us simultaneously.
His downs included his divorce from his first wife and his open-heart surgery. His ups included his second marriage and the great joy he gained from his son, Brendan. Shane would always remember to send me a congratulatory note every time Wales beat England at rugby – and when they lost he would tell me that "England were lucky."
He was a man highly sensitive to the feelings of others, but at the same time could be deprecating to females, something which often riled them, but others he worked with realised that he was actually quite a shy person who covered for it with a veneer of super-confidence.
Shane was a great negotiator and knew the industry and its people intimately. Admittedly he had the advantage of being there at the time when the amusement industry was in its heyday, Pong through Space Invaders. Companies were making fortunes and Shane revelled in it. He might have been "high maintenance", but those companies he worked for always got good value.
When he retired he undoubtedly missed the industry and would appear like a throwback at the odd trade show, walking the aisles and chatting with old friends.
He was unquestionably an old friend to me and I took it as the highest compliment when he used to say: “You are the only journalist with whom I have ever felt completely secure that a confidence would stay that way.”
The industry is the poorer today.
