Playing card games has always been part of my recreation. As children we played various well-known games with our Uncle Charlie - Beggar my Neighbour, Pairs, Twenty-fives, Snap, Solitaire. In Rochelle we used to play Poker, using matchsticks as money! In the 1950s Princess Margaret played Canasta so it became a popular game with women's groups.In Dublin I joined a group of Methodist women who met socially once a week to play in the home of one lady, whose husband was a wealthy builder. It was a fun game and during the interval we would enjoy delicious cakes and tea. I graduated to whist when I was staying with the Tyrrells, and attended a lot of whist drives, partnered mainly by Captain Tyrrell or by my Aunt Aileen. At the time, Methodists were not supposed to play cards or drink alcohol but Mrs Tyrrell decided to hold a Whist Drive in her home and her son, Ken was there, organising the tables and the drinks, including bottles of Guinness stout. Suddenly, someone came running in to say the Methodist Minister was on his way round by bicycle. As the attendees were all members of his church, everyone went into hiding behind closed doors and Mrs Tyrrell received him in the hall! We guessed he might have spotted his flock heading for the house and was coming to investigate!
In the evenings we used to play bridge at home; Capt and Mrs T taught me how to play auction bridge, rather more sophisticated and challenging than whist but still quite basic. My Uncle Dick was a keen bridge player and once a week he had seven of his professor friends from Trinity in for an evening of bridge. Diana and I had to steer clear of the drawing-room while the two tables were in play, but we had to have two trays ready to take in for supper during the interval. We busied ourselves in the kitchen, making dainty sandwiches and cakes. It didn't fit in with my ambitions at the time. I made up my mind that one day I would play bridge, not just as well as those professors but better. My chance came about 25 years ago when I had retired from full-time teaching and had time on my hands. Firstly, I heard about a whist group in the local Conservative Club so I joined and enjoyed playing cards again. If you were dealt the cards, you played them without too much skill.Then some of the members decided to set up a bridge club and we met once a week in the miners' hut in the Rose Garden. Again, it was basic bridge but it was a beginning. Soon I heard about Wolverhampton Bridge Club so Mike and I enrolled on their teaching class. Jane Boden owned the club in Tettenhall at that time and on Fridays she held a special session for beginners and she was an excellent teacher.
In due course she told Lil Tunnicliffe and me that we had reached the stage where we could join the regular Friday afternoon players and she asked the older players to be tolerant of us till we gained confidence. We were playing contract bridge and loving it. In due course Jane said we were ready to play with the more serious players on Monday afternoons. We learned to use bidding boxes and we learned how to score and we began to attend more advanced classes. I had various partners from time to time but Lil and I continued to play together and Mike and Lil's husband, Maurice, spent a weekend with us in Derbyshire on a bridge weekend.
You can learn how to play a reasonable game of chess in a night but a lifetime isn't long enough to learn all there is to know about bridge. Eventually, I found myself playing with a good partner and entering competitions and doing well. One of my early partners was Geoff Thomas and when The Times ran a big event in Earl's Court called the Tournament of the Mind we went up to London and stayed in University Halls of Residence and each morning we caught the Underground to Earl's Court. It was a heady challenge. We found ourselves at one stage playing against Boris Shapiro, a world-famous player, and I revoked at one stage and he called the Director. When David in Wolverhampton club heard about it he never let me forget it! There was another bridge club, meeting weekly in the Girls' High School, so I joined it and then Stafford Bridge Club where I began to play with a keen partner, Pauline Jones, who was dying of cancer but determined to live life to the full for as long as possible. The Times ran another Tournament of the Mind in Manchester University and Pauline and Mike and I set off to stay a few days in University accommodation. There we rejoiced when we came up against Paul Hackett, one of Britain's top international players, and beat him. Mike spent the days sight-seeing but joined us for dinner each evening. One evening we excused ourselves from bridge to see 'Fame' in the Lowry theatre. Pauline loved it all. We had another memorable bridge weekend in Cheltenham and we no longer felt inadequate against top players. I had fulfilled my ambition of not just being as good as those professors back in the 1950s but I was now playing at the top level.
Shirley was another keen partner of mine and we were really surprised when we won the 2003 Yuletide Pairs in Wolverhampton against all the top players and we held the cup for a year. The photo below shows us being presented with the cup from Roy Edwards, President of the club.
Geoff and I with our team mates won another club competition and had our photo published in Bridge magazine.
When, in 2006, I had a knee replacement, I couldn't drive for some time so I took a break from bridge. I had reached a stage where I was travelling to bridge almost every evening and several afternoons and driving home alone. I then lost my nerve for driving at night or for long distances so now I play only socially with friends at home. Social bridge is a relaxing exercise, whereas competitive bridge is highly stressful.
Playing Scrabble on Facebook with friends around the world and solving the weekly cryptic Jumbo crossword from the Times have replaced bridge as mental challenges.