I like to find folk older than I who have been in the industry longer. They are becoming a depressingly rare breed, so each reminder that someone answers to that description brings with it an enhanced appreciation.
Len Ainsworth hits the 90-year mark in July.
I hesitate to try to calculate when he must have entered the industry, although I am sure that it is well documented somewhere, but I do remember far-off days before I had anything to do with gaming machines. I would wander seaside arcades with my parents and play mechanical penny Aristocrats, which had a visible escalator through which you could see the big, brown coins advancing in a line.
Len’s career has been documented by writers more adept with adjectives than I, and this is not the place to chart the milestones which led to Len’s present leadership of AGT – or Ainsworth Gaming Technologies - these days working out of a big new factory on the outskirts of Sydney. All I would do is point to this new anniversary with some thanks to the divine providence that keeps Len with us and as mentally nimble as he is.
It never ceases to amaze me that this nonagenarian (is that the term?) can take a flight from Sydney to London and turn up bright as a button on an ICE stand the next morning. “I pop a pill and sleep all the way,” he tells me when I question his stamina.
What amazes me more is his wit, the sharp incisive commentary on any situation. When I get his occasional ‘letters’ by email I always wish dearly to publish them – that’s after wiping away the tears of mirth. Unfortunately, they are usually extremely libellous, either about various state or national governments in Australia, or about the callowness of his competitors.
Suffice to say that when he started AGT – some time in the 1990s? – he called it that because he’d had a spat with the late Si Redd, the founder of IGT. “Just wanted to twist his tail,” said Len with a grin.
We’ll all raise a glass to you, Len, from wherever we are…
