1957 Ditchburn Visits America
Ditchburn becomes the largest operator of Juke boxes in the world
In
1957
Ditchburn
was
asked
by
the
Music
Operators
of
America
to
attend
their
convention
in
Chicago
USA,
they
were
in
awe
of
the
UK
Ditchburn
operation,
the
American
operators
were
made
up
of
small
businesses,
and
because
of
the
nature
of
the
business
which
included
gambling
machines
they
usually
had
the
reputation
at
the
time
of
being
part
of
the
mafia,
most
of
the
operators
in
the
USA
controlled
their
own
area,
which
usually
consisted
of
50
to
60
machines
…
then
they
had
heard
about
this
well
spoken
guy
from
England
that
had
thousands
of
Jukeboxes
on
sites
all
over
the
UK,
to
them
he
was
a
big
player
and
the
kingpin
of
the
Jukebox
world,
when
in
reality
Geoffrey
Norman
Ditchburn
was
just
a
shrewd
business
man
that
had
seized
the
opportunity
at
the
right
time,
and
built
his
business
on
a
good
reputation,
service, honesty and value.
He
was
invited
to
give
a
speech
to
the
MOA
for
which
he
was
quite
taken
back
as
he
didn’t
think
he
was
important
enough,
but
we
are
so
glad
he
did
as
for
us
it
is
an
important
documentation
of
how
the
company
started,
and
how
he
operated
the
business
and
it
comes
from
the
horses
mouth
so
to
speak,
it
highlighted
that
Hawtin’s
did
actually
build
500
machines,
but
he
tells
us
that
they
were
all
sent
overseas
to
Germany,
which
makes
sense
as
there
were
at
the
time
2
million
US
troops
stationed
in
Germany
between
1946
and
1952,
where
most
US
military
had
left
the
UK
by
1947.
Enjoy this Wonderful insight into the Ditchburn Organisation