If there is one thing you can be certain of in BCD history, it is that any event hosted by Tom and Tricia Tyler will prove popular and September’s quarterly meeting at St. Andrews Church Hall in Ipswich was a case in point! Over 50 members of the club made the journey and I doubt that any regretted their decision. A super selection of modern and vintage puzzles for sale were evident, along with a huge display of puzzles for the “Show& Tell” session, themed as “British animals and birds” by our host and drawing out a wonderful selection from the members private collections, including several by the brilliant and now very sorely missed, Sara White.
A fascinating exhibit brought along by one of the members, fitting the theme with its depiction of sheep and shepherd’s dog and entitled a “Lox-Sur-Bridge Party Puzzle”, drew a lot of interest, particularly from one of the other members who had a keen interest in bridge memorabilia and felt that this was an American product, probably dating from the era 1920’s-1930’s. The gist of this was that the four-sectioned wooden puzzle was “worked” by the 4 people who were “dummy” at progressive bridge parties, so popular both in the UK and America during this period. A wooden divider supplied with the puzzle kept the four sections separated on the table. The use of the terminology “worked” encourages the American connection, with “assembling” being the more popular British description of the task of putting a jigsaw puzzle together. Fingers crossed for a more expansive report on this super puzzle in the next newsletter, along with more detailed news of the day.