An amusements business which supplies fruit machines and pool tables to pubs and clubs across the county marks its 40th anniversary today.

Ivor Thomas Amusements, based in Ramsgate, was founded by the father of its present owner Paul Thomas in 1976.

The business has endured highs and lows – from a storm in 1978 wiping out all its stock on Margate pier to earning Whitbread, now the UK’s largest hospitality company, as a client in the early 1980s.

Rapid growth supplying favourites like Pac-Man and Space Invaders led to the purchase of its storage facilities in Grange Road.

In 1987, Paul was made a director and in 1992, he became managing director, with father Ivor taking the role of chairman.

Paul said: “I have wonderful memories as a child, working with my father, helping him with the collections and then joining the business several years on.”

Today, the firm supplies the quiz machines, pinball games and the latest amusements to hotels and pubs across Kent, Sussex, Surrey, Essex and London.

However, the family association with the industry goes back far longer than the company.

In 1932 at the age of 24, Ivor Thomas Snr, Paul’s grandfather, was living in Shoreditch and began installing fruit machines and bumper pin tables in clubs and bus stations in London.

He met his wife Florence on a trip to Ramsgate before the Second World War.

They married and lived in Shoreditch where they raised three children and in 1948, they moved to Ramsgate, where Ivor Snr began working on his own bingo stall in an arcade on Ramsgate seafront.

In the early 1960s he bought the lease of the arcade in Granville Marina, Ramsgate. The business was passed onto his 24-year-old son Ivor Jr after he died in 1965.

It eventually led to the founding of Ivor Thomas Amusements.

Ivor and his wife Ann semi-retired in 2008. Paul’s wife Jane became a director in 2012.

Paul said: “The only thing that hasn’t changed over the 40 years is our ethos – supplying outstanding customer service.”