FREE game book for Dispatch readers to help celebrate Byron Bingo birthday bash!

The party is taking place on Friday, March 28, to mark the Byron’s 47th birthday, with free food and bubbly laid on. There will be a free game at 6.20pm for a chance to win a 40-inch meerkat.

But there is a chance to win a cash jackpot if you visit the town centre venue to play bingo on a Thursday night over the next four weeks - and you can claim a FREE bonus book of ten games worth 99p by cutting out and taking along the voucher in this week’s Dispatch.

Don’t miss the chance to join in the fun with a group of friends at what is fast becoming a Hucknall hot spot and thanks to Chancellor George Osborne’s Budget last week you won’t have to pay as much tax - after he halved bingo duty to 10 per cent.

Sritharan Tharmalingam, known as Sri, has been the Byron Bingo owner since 2004.

He said: “We have campaigned for bingo to get a fairer tax and the figure has exceeded our hopes. It will make a big difference to us and I am delighted.

“We are one of a relatively few surviving independent bingo halls. We offer traditional bingo with no gimmicks.”

Hucknall’s Conservative MP, Mark Spencer, will be the guest of honour and will be cutting the birthday cak

Sri said Byron Bingo had enjoyed its best year for some time and had benefited from the high-profile project to reopen the Byron Cinema, which is in the same building.

Ria Cash, who is spearheading the cinema initiative, said: “I am very pleased that the bingo has experienced an upsurge of support.

“It goes hand in hand with the cinema and we want both to be successful.”

Byron Bingo has twice hit the headlines in the last 12 years.

In 2002, famous actress Kathy Burke took part in a scene shot there for the Shane Meadows film, ‘Once Upon A Time In The Midlands’.

Then, in 2009, Hollywood actor and writer Rupert Everett visited the venue for a controversial Channel 4 TV programme, ‘The Scandalous Adventures of Lord Byron’.

He interviewed some of the bingo players and one of them told him off for asking rude questions about Byron’s sexual attributes!