I also remember designing board games, even making my own dice from cardboard shapes with tabs, carefully folded and glued.  I even made them extra-durable by filling them with dozens of squares of card to make them very solid, and then laminating them with Sellotape.  I have still got some, somewhere!  I made them so carefully that they were probably reasonably true or at least as reliable as my roulette wheel which I spun endlessly, recording every score, even though it came up “19” for more than seemed reasonable, even in my early teens.  I think it is still in the loft, along with my detailed statistics.

I have vague memories of owning one or two of the later, plastic-topped Journet puzzles, or perhaps they once belonged to my elder cousin. (What ever happened to the days when a child was happy with a cardboard box with a see-through top and a few indentations in the bottom and a few ball-bearings inside...? It still works for me!)

My teens and twenties probably brought me their own share of puzzles and problems, but we now jump forward.  I still possess a cube assembly puzzle, made from 6-7 white plastic pieces, which I have never been able to solve. I bought it in Hamley’s toy shop in  Regent Street, London in the mid 1980s, and it was many years later before I discovered by computer that it was actually incompatible pieces from two separate sets, and that it was actually the world’s first Impossible Cube Assembly Puzzle.  The pieces and box were loose on the shelf in the shop.  Someone somewhere has another ill-matched set (that may perhaps be solvable?)

I also remember the moment that I first handled a Rubik’s Cube.  I was stunned in seconds when I realised its potential, little realising that I would eventually travel the (top half of the) globe, hunting for similar things, and even watch a performer solve one with one hand, while juggling two others in his left hand.  I must do something with the film I shot.

In the mid 1980s I discovered Covent Garden and Camden Markets, especially the stall of Kevin Holmes in the former and Village Games in the latter.  Kevin became a good friend over the years, until his sad death, and I have lost count of the good times with Ray and Barbie(!) at Village Games.  In the late 1980s I met another much-missed friend, Fred Armitage, and we spent many pints and many hours arguing over puzzles, maths and many other problems.  It was in Village Games, soon after his return from Peru that I first met Robert Reid, a long-time inspiration and fellow gourmand.

On to the early 1990s. I remember somehow agreeing to be visited by a glib-tongued financial advisor who sold me an endowment policy (I did subsequently get compensated for its mis-selling, but that is another story.) He mentioned a puzzle involving a large-headed nail in a block of wood.  He told me that you had to balance 6 further nails on the head of the first. I still have the set I made from a bag of 6-inch nails and a wooden block from my local garden centre.

In the mid 1990s I visited a pub near Oxford which had several quarter-inch wrought-iron disentanglement puzzles hanging up.  I never discovered whether these were for shackling wobbly drinkers to the bar, but I soon tracked down the manufacturer after seeing similar items for sale in the now-long-closed Museum Shop in Kingston, SW London.  Nearly twenty years ago they were a hefty £18 each, so I contacted Tucker-Jones in the US and ordered several at dollar equavalents. The sales lady told me that I would enjoy a book they sold, “Puzzles Old and New” by Jerry Slocum. I am not at all a soft touch, but I was talked into buying a copy, and I have never looked back.  After paying the freight, customs, VAT and handling costs, I did not save anything, but it set me on the same road to ruin that many have followed before me, and looking far over my shoulder behind me I see that it is still a well-worn road.

I also remember somehow finding Puzzle Wood in the Forest of Dean, the maze of pathways winding through the gulleys of mossy rocks, with twisted roots of yew trees and the bridges, lookouts and other things you can find on your way around. Shortly afterwards I bought my first Hanayama puzzle (A-B-C) from the gift shop at Symonds Yat near Ross-on-Wye. I was very impressed!

In 1996 following a company merger I first had access (after work!) to the Internet, and, using Netscape Navigator I scoured this planet (and some smaller ones nearby) for the few puzzle suppliers with web sites.  In 1998 I started my first web site, including pictures of puzzles. Into the new century and I have even had one or two original puzzle ideas, while standing on the shoulders of giants.  Watson's Wormhole. . . . Digigrams. . . . Puzzle Food. . . . Dutch Cubist and quite a few others.  In about 2000 I started geocaching, which is almost a mechanical puzzle.

Subsequently I have visited the US four times, Japan twice, as well as Antwerp, Helsinki (where, against my better judgement I agreed to do a presentation on puzzle food and found that I made 200 people laugh for 10-15 minutes), Berlin, Prague, St Petersburg and Corsica while puzzle-hunting at International Puzzle Parties after Kevin Holmes and Ray Bathke convinced me to apply to attend the 1999 IPP in London.  I remember the Founders’ Reception, on a hotel rooftop at Heathrow, meeting so many like-minded puzzle collectors about whom I had read, including Nob Yoshigahara, Serhiy Grabarchuk and Bill Cutler, and especially Allan Boardman who made me so very welcome.  I met more new and lasting friends that evening than on any other day in my life. Then the next day I met the up-and-coming, down-and-out puzzle designer from Down Under, Brian ˜Mr Puddle” Young, hawking Australian cents in a funny-looking green box.

A True Puzzle Story...

Time, a greater maturity, and more experience of mechanical puzzles do not make the telling of the following story any easier. For me one of the big attractions of the 1999 International Puzzle Party in London was a visit to Edward Horden's house and large puzzle collection near Reading in Berkshire. At the time I didn't know Edward well, but had previously been in touch with him by snail mail in my efforts to get hold of a copy of his classic book, Sliding Piece Puzzles.

It was therefore a great privilege to finally meet him. While I took many photographs, bought several puzzles from him, and went away with many memories, the greatest of these is the misfortune which befell me in his bathroom! After entering the room, securing the door and going about my business, I then attempted to leave. Unfortunately the door handle came off in my hands! Despite years of puzzle experience, including secret opening boxes, I was unable to release myself from the bathroom. I had to resort to banging loudly on the door when I heard somebody passing out side. A lady, still unknown to me to this day, released me from my temporary prison. I mumbled my thanks, and returned to my tour of Edward’s puzzle collection.