Pinball wizard breathes new life into vintage machines

You can watch Stuart Leithes's piece on the pinball wizard from Cambridgeshire here.

A man from Cambridgeshire who specialises in fixing vintage pinball machines is finding his skills are in great demand.

The games were popular back in the 1950s though they've been superseded by computers and games consoles.

But you can still find the odd vintage model in a family games room, or a 'man cave'.

Mark Squires from Swavesey is one of the few people in the country who still specialises in fixing them.

The outside of a vintage pinball machine is a work of art.

The innards though are a complex mix of wires and circuit boards.

But luckily at his Pinball Surgery in Swavesey near Cambridge, Mark Squires is still keeping machines like this 1980s Eight Ball Deluxe running for his customers.

Mark started repairing arcade machines as part of his electronic engineering apprenticeship in the late 70's and that's when he picked up the nickname 'Dr. Pinball'

His restorations have won prizes at the UK Pinball Show, he pops up on TV from time to time and raises money for charity. Generally Mark aims to make sure that these wonderful machines continue to entertain a new generation of players.

"The origins of the pinball machine can be traced back to a game called Bagatelle found in French coffee houses in the early 19th century. Their heyday in this country was between the 1950s in cafes and the 1990s in arcades - and now they're more often found in games rooms in people's homes

Mark only operates his pinball surgery in his spare time.

So he has got rather a long waiting list for repairs. If you were thinking of getting him to perform a bit of pinball wizardry.