Newswink 14 • 13 February 1982

Willis

(Charles Relle sent this clipping with the letter that appeared in Newswink 13, page 14. From The Pauline, July 1963.)

Willis.—On April 20th, 1963, the Rev. Edgar A. Willis, known to generations of Paulines and others as “Eggs,” died peacefully in his sleep at Cirencester at the age of 71, in the middle of one of the holiday houseparties for boys which he and his greatest friend had been organising without a break in spite of war-time difficulties for over forty years. These holiday parties were started in 1919 by a group of friends, and for fourteen years were run exclusively for Paulines. Although since then Pauline house-parties have been continued up to the present time, Eggs felt strongly that the field should be extended into other schools, and up to the time of his death over 150 schools have been represented in the succeeding thirty years.

Eggs was at School from 1904 to 1910. From the Classical side he passed to the Maths, VIII and thence to the City and Guilds Engineering College, where he obtained his B.Sc. and A.C.G.I. His early promise at rugger and cricket was cut short by two successive dislocations of a knee, which Sir Herbert Barker was to put right many years later; but he developed into a good half- and quarter-miler and a useful oar. He was secretary of the Chess Club, a pillar of the Christian Union and one of the leaders in organising a Christian meeting for boys outside school on Sunday afternoons, which has been not only maintained till the present day, but extended in scope. The list of speakers in Eggs’s day included William Temple, and “Monty” was once a visitor.

Employed on tank design during the First World War, Eggs was not destined to remain an engineer for long. He had often been invited as a lay preacher to take services in both Anglican and Free Churches, and in 1927 the Ickenham Congregational Church asked him to become their full-time Minister. He gave up his profession as an engineer, and while officiating at Ickenham he took a course of training at New College, London, to become a Congregational Minister.

After four years at Ickenham he took charge of Brixton Independent Church, combining his ministry with the post of Schools Secretary of the Student Christian Movement.

From 1948 to 1957 Eggs was in charge of the Broad Plain Boys’ Clubs in Bristol. With his work in Bristol began a close a fruitful association with the boys’ club movement which was to continue until his death. He joined the Training Committee of the Executive Council of the Bristol Federation of Boys’ Clubs and then became a Religious Adviser to the Federation. He became closely identified with Idle National Boys’ Club from its early days and served on its Management Committee since 1958.

One of the National Boys’ Club Secretaries, who was his colleague at Bristol, has commented that “at all times and in every place—sports field, training course, camp or club—Eggs added his own inimitable blend of fun, encyclopaedic knowledge and uncompromising Christian belief, and he became one of the most widely known and appreciated figures in time of his death over 150 schools have been Bristol’s club scene. His ready sympathy, kindly wisdom and sheer enjoyment of life were rare indeed, and were always at the disposal of individual boys or groups with whom he spent the bulk of his time. Among his many gifts was that of speaking about religion to young people, and few who heard him failed to be moved by his simplicity and sincerity. He used language they understood, though I never heard him ‘talk down’ to an audience anywhere.”

In 1955 Eggs underwent a serious, but entirely successful, operation for cancer, and was able in the last eight years of his life, in spite of persistent thrombosis in his legs, to add some twenty-five climbs of Cader Idris in North Wales to his previous score of about 120.

It was with boys that Eggs was always most truly at home and it was with them that his main—one is tempted to say “unique—genius lay. Collectively at his holiday house-parties, over seventy of which have been held every Easter and August at Cirencester, and individually Eggs used his great gift of cultivating spiritual friendship.

This may sound “pi” [pious], but there was nothing in the least “pi” about Eggs. He had the keenest sense of humour and was sharply alert to avoid, to detect and to deflate any false or unhealthy sentimentalism in religion.
Fun and games (many of his own invention) were his unfailing avenue of approach. Of all the unusual sports at which Eggs was an expert, Tiddlywinks perhaps stood highest. In 1958 it received much publicity through the support of the Duke of Edinburgh, and an English Tiddlywinks Association was formed, with Eggs as its first Secretary General. At his first press-conference he told bewildered reporters that “the world is looking to Tiddlywinks in its urge to get back to the primeval simplicity of life”, a profound thought which eventually became a “saying of the year” in The Observer. His motto might well have been “Christian strength through joy”.

When he was over seventy he was still a boy at heart, and that was one of the main secrets of his ability to penetrate and to win the hearts—and souls—of boys.

Nearly forty years ago Stephen Neill dedicated a book of his to two friends, one of them being “E. A. Willis … Cordium Puerorum Interpreti Optimo”. That might not inappropriately serve as Eggs’s epitaph.

What to Do When Your Squidger Breaks

by Dave Lockwood

This article deals with that seldom mentioned subject—the trauma of breaking your squidger. There is, of course, the stupid method of squidger breaking. This usually takes the form of the squidger thrown against the floor or wall in a fit of pique. Many players have on occasion thrown down their squidgers in disgust. The problem is not with the squidger here but rather with the squidgee. Few players have raised this art to the level attained by Tim Schiller. Then again, few have tried.

The thrown squidger has at least a measure of satisfaction about it. The venting of frustrations, the sound of plastic hitting vinyl, cement, or brick, and the stunning tinkle of rapid crack propagation provide an outlet for those baser instincts that winks so often ignores.

A tragic and perhaps more devastating method is the disintegration of a squidger in the normal act of play. Moishe broke his squidger while his wink bounced another wink into the cup. Jon Mapley also had this happen to him recently. He was able to laugh it off because he makes his own squidgers and always has a spare. Those more emotionally attached to their shooting implements have a more difficult time.

Lastly we come to the sad case of Severin A. Drix. Denied even the satisfaction of watching his squidger break, his simply disappeared. After carrying his cherished tools of the trade in his wallet for years, on the alert for the odd game in Harlem, Africa, or Ithaca, suddenly they were gone. His game was destroyed. The long, drawn-out learning process of squidger pressure had to begin with a new set of squidgers. Happily, Sev has settled on some new Tucker designs which seem to have rejuvenated his game. Having learned the lesson of overdependence on the physical elements, the ex-Paper Tiger has now gone into hibernation to learn how to raise his game above such arbitrary limitations.

Championmania

by Larry Kahn

The following trivia questions pertain to players who have a total of 100 or more games in the Continentals, Pairs, and Singles (= advance question: how many winkers have done so? =). Only A division games are counted unless the Continentals format was quads. Anyone who can answer all six correctly gets the Sunshine Achievement Award.

1. Name the 5 players who have won all three titles.
2. Name the 4 players who have at least 200 total wins for the three tournaments.
3. Name the 5 players who have played at least 6 0% of their games in these tournaments.
4. Name the 4 players whose ppg for the championships is higher than their total ppg.
5. Name the 4 players with winning percentages over 70.
6. This is the hard one. Name the 2 players with ties in the Singles.

(= Answers in Popular Winking volume 4, number 6, June 1991 =)

Active/Semiactive Players Ranked by Time of First Tournament

by Fred Shapiro

 1 Sev Drix (1967 Triangular)
   Ferd T. Bull
   Bob Henninge 
   Sunshine 
 5 L (1968 Continentals)
   Moishe
   Tim Schiller
 8 MP Rouse (1969 Comell-Harpur)
 9 Dave Barbano (l9?0 Continentals)
   Jim Marlin
   Dean Solomo
   Bill Renke
13 Dave Lockwood (1970 Easterns)
   Bill Gammerdinge
   Fred Shapiro
16 Jake Solomon (1971 Continentals)
17 mary kirman (l971 Branches of the Tree)
   Carl Chenkin
19 Larry Kahn (1971 HOTT)
   Don Fox

Apathetic NATwAns Peril Organization

by Dave Lockwood

After the record number of games played in 1979-80 (527), the 1980-81 total of 264 was the lowest since 1969-70. The current season seems to be continuing the downward trend. The participation of most veterans has decreased and too few new recruits appear. The problems with recruiting (boredom for veterans, unwillingness to believe game can be serious on part of potential recruits, etc.) have been examined before but did not spell the demise of NATwA as long as 15-30 veterans would play 25-65 games a year. Now that these veterans no longer play as many tournaments/games, the existence of NATwA itself may be in jeopardy.

Last year, NATwANs recognized that a problem existed and scheduled so-called “fun” tournaments to slow the decline in participation. With 13 winkers at the HUP (Haverford Unstacked Pairs), 17 at the FuntlnenTals/Fall Ithaca Tournament, and a handful (12) at the Boston Open Pairs (BOP), fun didn’t work. While ETwA is strong and growing once again, NATwA is experiencing a decline approaching annihilation. Active veterans like SecGen Horsemeat will stop appearing at distant tournaments (Boston, Ithaca) if significant local interest is not maintained. Each person’s absence from a tournament contributes to the overall malaise.

The reasons for the decline are several. The most significant is the increasing dispersion of active winkers—Tim, Charles, Bill G, and Scott are too far away to make more than one Eastern tournament a year, if that. Bob, Mac, Mary, Marg, Rich D (Mex), Country, Martin, Rich S are one large step closer but find many tournaments, particularly those in Boston, difficult to attend. Even such active winkers as Joe, Larry, Fred, and Rick find the Philly/Washington area too remote. Coupled with the distance problem is the money necessary to reach tournament sites. This is an especially insoluble problem.

Therefore, I recommend the following 4½ point program to “solve” the current winks decline.

1. Local area get-togethers once a month in relaxed surroundings (i.e., not schools, but homes)

1b. Publicize these meetings in local newspapers, magazines, radio stations, etc. to draw interest

2. Eliminate statistics from all tournaments except the championships—Continentals, Pairs, Singles.

3. Local random tournaments once every 2 or 3 months (in addition to local get-togethers.

4. Extreme urging of all players to attend the championships with the promise that formats will be changed to reflect varied interest levels (e.g., knockouts, B division singles, etc.)

These ideas are not exclusive; all others are welcome and needed. It is time to take stock of this phase of NATwA’s development and plan for the future. NATwA’s funds should be used to pay for the publicity for the local get-togethers. Dues must be more rigorously collected to facilitate this and to finance needed equipment purchases. We must work together now or else all we have worked for up to now will go for nought.

The State (or Lack Thereof) of NATwA

by Larry Kahn

This hasn’t been the greatest year for American winks. About the only thing I can say is that I think I’ve done a better job for NATwA than Reagan has done for the US. Maybe that’s the problem. Everyone has gone into hiding waiting for Reagan to drop the big one and is afraid to travel to tournaments.

Seriously, we do have somewhat of a problem. I think the main difficulty is the lack of new blood; as people get older they start having other interests and perhaps can’t devote as much time to winks. Recruiting hasn’t gone really well in the past five years and there doesn’t seem to be an easy solution (= how bout Videowinks games in every nook? =).

Another problem is that I think people don’t show up because they’re afraid of having to do some work. Over the last year I’ve gotten a lot of help from *, L [Richard Hussong] & Sue [Assmann], Ken [Moraff[, Rick [Tucker], & Bob [Henninge ] and at least in terms of organizing we got everything done. It only takes about half a dozen well-placed people to do the work and I think we’ve got that at this point so the only thing the rest of you have to do is show up.

Maybe this has just been a bad year for a lot of people and next year will be better. I know the farm was busy building a house and Severin was hibernating half the year. I think there are enough truly dedicated people (even if it’s only 5 or 6) that will keep things going indefinitely, so if winks has dropped in priority for some of you, at least realize that NATwA will be around when you feel like getting back into it a little more.

I’d at least like to see the 3 championships remain meaningful and I hope that more of the established players will try to get to at least 2 of them. As for the other tournaments, maybe they should be directed more toward local get-togethers than trying to pull people from everywhere.

If anybody has suggestions or comments, please let me know and if possible write them down for publication in Newswink.

Match Game

by Sunshine

…match winkers with gossip

Arye        Not moving to North Carolina
Beast       Retreating
Bill G      Changing coasts
Bob         Laid off
Charles     Decompilers for robots
Dave L      On new land
Jake        Legal support
Joe         Nepal hiker
Ken         ?? (par avion)
L           Expecting
Mac         Medical history
mary        Teaching in China? 
MP          Philadelphia resident
Rich        Engaged
Sev         Miami resident
TDI         Cincinnati resident

(eman tsal yb redro lacitebahpla ni srekniw egnarra stniH)

—

Moishe) dull programmer, never been to Himalayas

Greg(or)) (verb) all musical instruments (including fast cars), attempting permanent MIT student status, Slovak royalty (Koso

Don) gamer, hiker, working-class hero (for the Union makes us strong) (Fox

Nan) avocation(s) – poet, artist. vocation – technical secretary (Brady

Peter) would-be peddler of statistical snake oil, might spiring ‘interest’ in a couple of months, home body (Nestor

—

By playing in 3 games at the unstacked pairs, Muenster has now taken (a big) part in 5 NATwA games, breaking the old record of games by a paranormal wink of 4 set by Clure in 1971. The beloved Clure passed away 10 years ago, 12-5-71.

World Single 13

by Larry Kahn

Haverford College

7 November 1981

Dave retains the title after an interesting, though not particularly well-played 7 game match over Larry. The final score was 27½-21½, with the score after 6 games being 21½-20½ for Dave.

20 minute games, 30 second opponent choice rule, Dave wins coin toss, chooses color choice (red-blue) over corner choice. Players alternate colors each game, also mats will alternate between Dave’s new English mat and one of Larry’s summer English mats (= unfortunately the lights could not be dimmed, otherwise Larry would have had the brightness choice =). Joe refereeing. TV and radio coverage (National Public Radio) coverage for the 1st game.

Game 1 / A tight game as neither player takes any real chances. Dave goes up near the end of regulation but Larry gets on a pile in just the right spot and blows it. Eventually Dave recaptures a small pile with a good squop. Dave pots a 7-incher blue for the win, pots a red off a green to get 5½ and Larry does not pot a yellow off a pile ending game. In retrospect, Larry probably should have potted ending 4th, guaranteeing either a 3 or 4.

Game 2 / Dave plays very well, Larry does little, perhaps bothered by the last game. Not much to report. Dave takes 6 to go up 11½-2½.

Game 3 / A reverse of game 2. Larry makes nearly every shot, Dave helps a lot in his own demise and Larry gets a much needed 6. 12½-8½ Dave.

Game 4 (after lunch break) / Maybe the best (at least  most even) game. Larry makes an excellent gromp of a red on green onto a yellow next to green for a tenuous triple. Dave fails to make an easy bomb with the next yellow shot which would have swung the game heavily to him. The game ends up close in rounds but it is an obvious 4 for Larry. 15½-12½ Dave.

Game 5 / Larry takes initial control and eventually a monster pile develops near the cup. Dave eventually makes some good attacking shots near the end of regulation but Larry makes the necessary squops to keep control. 6-1 to Larry, making the total 18½-16½ Larry.

Game 6 / A pot out game all the way, Dave with greens and Larry with both colors. At the critical point Larry has 5 trivial blues and one big nurdled, 1/8″. Since there are no winks in, Larry tries the nurdled first instead of putting the others in but misses, his head getting in the way. Green continues but misses after 2, red takes a threatening yellow instead of trying a non-trivial potout, and yellow comes at blues, squopping one. Larry then tries to pot a bottom blue and get the top in position to pot out the squopped blue but fails. Dave then pots out with green and ends up getting the obvious 5 since yellow was at the boondocks. 21½-20½ Dave.

Game 7 / Fairly even initially, but Larry has a very bad sequence where he tries a difficult shot with a somewhat bad result, then subs the other color in an approach, and rolls off after a bomb shot. He makes a brief comeback attempt but it is too late and Dave ends up with a 6. Final score 27½-21½.

Overall, neither player showed consistent good play. It was a streaky match, with the wins going Dave 2, Larry 3, Dave 2. Each player had chances to put the other away and didn’t (until the final game). Interestingly, over the 10 practice games the day before and the 7 in the match, the score was exactly a tie after the 17 games.

Lockwood’s World Singles Opponents

8/78 Sev Drix
7/79 Alan Dean
2/80 Jon Mapley
4/80 Sev Drix
8/80 Larry Kahn
3/81 Pam Knowles
7/81 Jon Mapley
11/81 Larry Kahn

Games Played in the Eighties

by Fred Shapiro

 1 Dave Lockwood    106
 2 Arye Gittelman    98
 3 Larry Kahn        96
 4 Rick Tucker       90
 5 Fred Shapiro      82
 6 Ross Callon       78
 7 Joe Sachs         77
 8 Severin Drix      68
 9 Bill Renke        66
10 David desJardins  65
11 Moishe            60
12 Ken Moraff        52
   Ferd              52
14 Bob Henninge      46
15 Brad Schaefer     44
16 Sam Pottle        43
17 Beast Solomon     40
   *                 40
19 Don Fox           38
20 John Reppy        36
21 TDI               33
22 L                 32
   mary kirman       32
   Jim Roberts       32
25 Doug Young        30
   Matt Solà         30
27 Charles Frankston 29
28 Nan Brady         28
29 Mac McAvoy        27
   MP Rouse          27
31 Jim Butler        26
   Rich Steidle      26

—

Tiddle-a-Wink, Tiddle-a-Wink, Tiddle-a-Wink the Barber,
Tiddle-a-Wink, Tiddle-a-Wink, went to shave his father.
But he made a slip and cut his lip,
Which made his father roar,
The father knock’d poor Tiddle-a-Wink Bang upon the floor.

— chorus of ‘Tiddle-a-Wink the Barber, The Popular Comic Song, Written, Composed & Sung with Immense Success by John Read’ [music-hall song] (via Fred Shapiro)