Document Metadata

Publication title: Winking World
Whole number: 5
Publisher: English Tiddlywinks Association
Publication date: March 1964
Editor: Guy Consterdine
Page side count: 8
Page size: 8″ wide by 13″ high
Preparation: typewritten
Copyright status: no marking
Transcriber: Rick Tucker
Transcription note: the portions of articles that appear on continuation pages in the original have been combined with the start of the article, and references to continuations have been omitted
OCR date: 30 November 2019
OCR source: PDF of page image scans by Harley Jones, dated 7 October 2018
Proofread date: 1 December 2019
HTML conversion date: 1 December 2019
W3C HTML validation date: 12 January 2020
Date updated: 17 August 2022

Abbreviations

1st: club’s first team
Ag.: Agriculture
AGS: Altrincham Grammar School
b: small blue wink
B: large blue wink
Berks.: Berkshire
C.: College
Derbs.: Derbyshire
Est. Man.: Estate Management
ETwA.: English Tiddlywinks Association
g: small green wink
G: large green wink
G.S.: Grammar School
H.C.J.: Holy Child Jesus
Inst.: Institute
Middx.: Middlesex
NCFT.: National College of Food Technology
NJTwC: Northern Junior Tiddlywinks Championship
P.C.: Park College
r: small red wink
R: large red wink
Rd: Road
S.: Saint
SJTwC: Southern Junior Tiddlywinks Championship
tw: tiddlywinks
TV: television
U.: University
ULU.: University of London Union
VIII: team of 8
Worcs.: Worcestershire
WW: Winking World
y: small yellow wink
Y: large yellow wink

Articles

Start of page 1, unnumbered

THE WINKING WORLD

THE OFFICIAL JOURNAL OF THE ENGLISH TIDDLYWINKS ASSOCIATION

MARCH 1964 · Price 6d · Number 5

WORLD RECORD BROKEN AT NORTHERN JUNIOR

Allen Astles shattered his own World Speed Record of 53 seconds when he potted 24 winks from a distance of 18 inches in 26.5 seconds (1.104 seconds per wink!) at the Northern Junior Tiddlywinks Championship. This is a phenomenal feat, as anyone who has attempted it will know. Another World Record has been equalled since the previous edition of Winking World—Accuracy. Alan Cooper now joins Michael Brogden as holder of this record, potting 12 winks from a distance of 3 feet in 23 shots. Altrincham Grammar School players now hold or share all 3 World Records (their performance last June of 40 winks for the 4-pot Relay is still unequalled).

NORTHERN JUNIOR 1964: ‘ANOTHER TRIUMPH’

Report by Ken Veitch, NJTwC Organiser

The 6th annual Northern Junior Championship, held in the University of Manchester Union on January 2nd-3rd 1964, attracted an entry of 67 pairs (entry fee 2/6 per pair). As usual the Championship was a knockout doubles competition,
open to anyone between the ages 11-18.

It was soon apparant apparent that the intensive training programme organised for the Altrincham G.S. pairs by their coach Astles was going to reap handsome dividends. 7 of the 8 pairs in the quarter-finals were from AGS. Geoff Tattersail and Peter Kershaw, Manchester G. S. bright hopes, were eliminated in the 3rd round, and the subsequent rounds saw some fine winking as the Altrincham pairs fought between themselves to win the Evening News and Chronicle Challenge Cup. Chris Hill with David Miller and Paul Atkinson with Malcolm Wilkinson reached the final. 3 games and some 270 tense squidges later, Atkinson and Wilkinson had become 1964 Northern Junior Champions,

Prior to this 5 pairs of girls had squidged off in the 1st round. 2 pairs, both from Altrincham Girls G. S., reached the second round but then went down to far more experienced players. Perhaps 1964 marks the beginnings of a serious attempt by the fair sex to make its presence strongly felt in the NJTwC.

5 schools were represented in the 3rd round as against 2 last year; winkers from schools other than the tiddle-strongholds of Altrincham and Manchester G.S. are clearly becoming more dexterous. As they gain more experience of contemporary tiddlywink tactics these winkers will no doubt form a more serious challenge to the game’s current Northern Junior aces.

At the close of the Championship Norman Bardsley, Secretary-General of the International Federation of Tiddlywinks Associations, presented Atkinson and Wilkinson with the Evening News and Chronicle Challenge Cup, and congratulated the Altrincham matsmen on their collective efforts.

The records competitions were again instituted at 3d per attempt. With consummate ease Allen Astles set up a new Vorid Speed Record; in the Accuracy competition Peter Kershaw won after play-off. Special, rotating scoreboards designed and erected by Securiveitch Ltd underwent successful trials.

The 1964 NJTwC proved to be another triumph for the game of tiddlywinks. TV, radio and newspaper coverage was excellent and the signs are that the delights of tiddlywinks are being more widely appreciated. No doubt the sum raised for the National Playing Fields Association, though small, will be put to good use.

SOUTHERN JUNIOR TW CHAMPIONSHIP

Plans are being put into operation for holding a SJTwC for the first time. Probable date is April 25th and the likely venue is the University of London Union.

Start of page 2

THE SILVER WINK

The progress of the 1963-64 Prince Philip Silver Wink competition up the time Winking World went to press is shown on the chart below :

				
					                  Aberdeen     ?                        ┐              ┐
                  Belfast             ┘ ───────────  │──────────
                                                     │                 
                  Aberystwyth  60 2/3 ┐ Aberystwyth  ┘
                  Bristol      51 1/3 ┘

Hull        93 ┐  Hull         46 1/2 ┐
York        19 ┘                      │ Manchester   ┐
Manchester  67 ┐  Manchester   65 1/2 ┘              │
Nottingham  45 ┘                                     │──────────
Oxford	    53 ┐  Leicester    29     ┐              │
Leicester   59 ┘                      │ Cambridge    ┘
Cambridge   58 ┐  Cambridge    83     ┘
London      54 ┘

8 other universities expressed interest in joining the tournament but lost by default: Bangor, Cardiff, Edinburgh, Exeter, Keele, Leeds, Norwich, Reading.Last year’s winners, London, narrowly lost their lst-round match against Cambridge, 54-58, in December 1963. This was the first match London 1st team had lost since 2nd December 1961. Cambridge, who have never won the Silver Wink, wennt on to beat Leicester, and will meet Manchester in the semi-final.The semi-finals are due to be played during a jamboree winks weekend on 21-22 March at Manchester University Union. An ETwA Council meeting and an England-Scotland International will also take place that weekend.

THE MARCHANT TROPHY

The Champions of All England, London University, defended the title against Manchester University on Sunday 19th January, in London. These two teams had never played each other before, so there was no previous gauge of their relative strengths. A time-limit of 20 minutes was imposed, when a bell rang and the final 5 rounds of turns commenced. The dominant style of the match was very much double-squop, and in only 2 of the 16 games were there any winks in the pot by the bell. Both of the 2 exceptions were in the 2nd quarter; on Mat 3 one blue wink had been potted after the 20 minutes, and on Mat 1 5 yellows, but even these games had not developed into an open style.

The match was closely fought throughout; leadership at the end of each of the first 3 quarters was held by London, then Manchester, then London.

With 3 of the 4 games in the final quarter completed, London had nosed ahead 53 1/2 – 51 1/2; a large audience grouped round Mat 3 to watch the final tense squidges of the match; here the Londoners earned 3 priceless points, and thereby retained the Marchant Trophy, 56 1/2 – 55 1/2.

From the individual player’s point of view it was a low-scoring match, in that no pair squidged to an outstanding score. Mullholland and Miss Jacks, making their debut in the London 1st team, on Mat 4, scored highest with 17 points.

THE BOMBAY BOWL

England v. Wales, 29th February:

This encounter took place at Bristol, as before. It was held as Winking World was at the press, so details were not available. A gap in the English team was created when Michael Pugh, of University College London, went down with chicken pox less than a week before the match, and a reserve was called in to take his place. The rest of the England team was:- Peter Bild and Peter Frost (Bristol); Charles Relle and John Breeze (Cambridge); Michael Crick (ULU) and Phil Villar (Gradwink); and Keith Montague (Nottingham).

England v. Scotland, 22nd March:

The Sunday highlight of the jamboree winks weekend at Manchester will be an Anglo-Scottish International. Britain*s leading winks authorities will be there either to watch or play.

EQUIPMENT

Sets of winks, 5/– each. Mats, 25/– each.

Postage : Mats, and sets with mats, post free. Postage on sets on their own; 6d for 1, 9d for 2, and another 3d for each extra set, up to 12 post free. Knowledge of Rules helpful: booklets 2d each.

MARCHANT GAMES LTD, GOLDINGS HILL, LOUGHTON, ESSEX, sole suppliers.

Start of page 3

BOOK REVIEW

THIS WINKING LIFE

by Our Literary Correspondent

Review of ‘A WINK IN TIME’ by Sir Alan Potter (4 vols, 4 gns)

In his nursery days Sir Alan was found to have double-jointed thumbs of extraordinary powers. Finding no outlet for these powers in ludo, dominoes or housey-housey, he avoided the inevitable neurosis by turning his hand to tiddlywinks. He devised a technique of mesmerising his opponents into squidging all their winks off the mat, as a result of which at the age of 9 he narrowly missed selection for the British team for the 1928 Olympics. Nothing daunted, he became a Schoolboy International in 1929, and was voted Sportsman of the Year. He immediately turned professional, and in one year alone sold over 10,000 Alan Potter Autographed Squidgers and Kneepads.

In the middle 1930s Potter found the old traditions being travested, for winks were actually being potted within half an hour of the squidge-off. Sir Alan resurrected the ancient practice of not placing the pot on the mat till all the winks were squopped up; he thereby aroused a stormy controversy in the national press, as a result of which in 1936 he became Tiddlywinks Correspondent of the Sunday Tomes Times.

When war broke out in 1939 Potter, now 20 and at the peak of his career, was sent to the Malayan jungles to entertain the troops with lectures and demonstrations, while conducting a Gallup Poll on the psychological effects of tiddlywinks on the natives. Potter describes in detail in ‘A WINK IN TIME’ how while searching for a lost wink in a Japanese gun-implacement he developed cartilage trouble in his squidging thumb, and was consequently invalided out of the Army. He went to Australia, and in 1944 won the Australian Grass Winks Championship; the game has seen no greater master of the techniques of squidging on soggy grass, and his superb control of his winks in the muddy conditions of the 1945 Championship won him the title for the second year running. Potter was for a time on the editorial staff of the Melbourne Weekly Winker, but his muck-raking profiles of Australian winking officials led to his exile, and he returned to England to give some exhibition matches before the Emperor Highly Unlikely.

‘A WINK IN TIME’ reveals the post-war Alan Potter delving into his favourite topic, the pre-history of the game, His findings, summarised in serial form in The Winkers’ Digest, and the subject of a major film ‘The L-Shaped Mat’ (X) in 1950, are put forward yet again in ‘A WINK IN TIME’. Potter startled Egyptologists when he discovered on an archaeological dredge in the River Nile a Babylonian vase with the inscription ‘A yank in the pot is worth two in the eye of a Bactrian camel’. Potter also puts forward his theories that Nero was tiddling while Rome burned, and that Canute was so distressed at the tide coming in while he was playing beach-winks (threatening to annihilate his winning position) that he ordered the sea to retreat.

In 1954 Sir Alan was given a baronetcy for his services to the game, at the age of 35. He has spent the following 10 years writing his exhaustive memoirs, which now appear in 4 volumes between hard covers, but an abridged paperback edition is due shortly. The book is to be adapted for a television series, when Sir Alan returns from his mission to Moscow.

Next week’s Book Review includes the translation of the new book by Squidgov and Vinkski.

[Cautionary Note: Any resemblance between actual persons, publications, or events and those mentioned in the above review is entirely coincidental.]

SQUIDGING MACHINES TO FIGHT IT OUT

Two revolutionary machines, designed to eliminate the human error in squidging, will shortly do battle. The machines were constructed by two members of the same London club, but work on different principles. The pocket-sized Auto-squidger is a 4-wheeled interior-sprung engine, whereas its larger rival (‘I can’t get this into the boot of my car !’) works on the pulley principle.

Start of page 4

A RECORDING SYSTEM FOR TIDDLYWINKS

by Patrick Bonham, Hon. Vice-Pres. of ULU Tw Club.

Until now, commentary on individual games of Tw has been confined to general remarks every few rounds. A few months ago a simple list of abbreviations, and a format based on the annotation of Chess, were devised by the writer. This was at first found to be too simple; subsequent elaboration made the method not only slow but ambiguous in places. Recently the system has been reduced to a logical and neat framework, and it should now be possible, with practice, to actually keep up with the players on all but the more involved desquops. No doubt certain imperfections have yet to be purged, but the subject is more difficult than it looks.

The worst problem is the question of position. Co-ordinates are just impracticable, and the best I have managed is a concept of nearness. ‘Nearness’, of course, depends upon the standard of the players, but I suggest a 75% probability squopping distance as ‘near’.

It is not easy to eliminate ambiguity. There may be more than one way of exactly expressing a shot, but there must never be more than one shot to fit an expression. Apart from distinguishing between individual loose winks not near any other (can you number the winks?), this problem has been overcome.

One complete game (RG 1), and most of another (RG 2), have so far been recorded. Actually recording a game is quite a task; the recorder must know the system by heart, follow in absurd detail everyone’s shots, keep up with the players, and last but not least keep out of their way!

To illustrate the system the Editor of WW and I played a demonstration game (the “WW Minigame”) at ETwA’s Head Office one midnight.

WW Minigame

1.  B          G              r               y /B
2.  B x y.     g /B2          r→B2 /g	      y pots(accid. ); Y
3.  B          g /g           r	              Y,⤷B2 ?

Green and Yellow’s intended strategy was double-squop, but already their position is perilous.

4.  b /G       G x b          r x G2         Y /r3
5.  b	       g m B3 /B3     r x g /B3      y /B3
6.  B(B3) x y

Yellow claimed that Blue’ s last shot was illegal, but was overruled by the umpire!

6.             g m B4         R,⤷g ?         y /r3

Green and Yellow have hardly improved their position, but Red’s resources are rather limited. There are two centres of interest; on one side of the pot Blue covers three Yellows, with two other piles nearby; on the other Red covers a large Green and a small Blue, with two loose Yellows near.

7.  b,↓        g(g2) △       rg2,---r2,Rf!  y/r3

8.             G, x B4 !!    R m G5          Yt

9.  B m G5     G(&5) ж BYyy  R m Y           yellow pots remaining 5 !!

Red’s effective dive-bomb in round 7 worsened the opponents’ chances, but Green’s phenomenal squop from the baseline in round 8 (and Red and Blue then missing him) and his desquopping shot in round 9, freed the remaining five Yellows which were then,potted in succession, this brilliant coup giving Green and Yellow the game.

ABBREVIATIONS used in the recording of the WW Mini game

r      small red out from base
R      large red out from base
↓      leaves the mat	
→      moves towards the pot
△.     adjusts, consolidates, positions	
t.     tokens
x ...  squops ...	
→ ...  moves towards...
m ...  misses ...	
 ... bombs ...
⤷ ... dives under ...
... f  ... is freed
g3     the pile of 3 winks whose top one is small green
g(g3)  the small green on top of a pile of 3 winks
---    becoming ... Used after desquops etc.
ж ...  frees ... from the pile, by desquopping
/      near e.g. y /b   small yellow out and lands near large blue
		 y/r3→  small yellow which is near pile of 3 winks whose top one is small red moves towards the pot.

[This is not a complete list of abbreviations, but the Editor can supply them on request.]

Start of page 5

EXTRACTS FROM UNPUBLISHED PAPERS

(Anon.)

Match Practice for Two People

Various situations arise in which two people wish to play winks. One proposition is that A and B play against an imaginary pair X and Y. The following guide to XY’s ‘play’ should suffice for a game.

Shots of XY relying mainly on chance are played by AB. Shots relying mainly on skill are assumed to be successful if easy (and placed in position, not squidged) and are played by A or B if not easy. XY never make a bad mistake, e.g. squidge off the mat. If a bad mistake for XY occurs, the winks are replaced in their former position. Whether or not XY’s shot is taken again depends on the nature discretion of AB in each particular situation. Detailed procedures (all with the ‘mistakes’ proviso) might be:-

Easy potting shot. The wink is picked up and placed in the pot for XY.
Easy squop for X or Y to attempt. The wink is placed halfway over the squopped wink on the nearest side.
Harder pot or squop. A or B try the shot. If it misses, this is left.
Squidge-off. If an X or Y wink lands more than one foot from the pot A or B retrieve it and fire again.
‘Walking’, desquopping, adjusting piles. A or B play the shot, but of course X or Y are not allowed to make a bad mistake.
Wink leaves the mat, unless from a desquop. The wink (X’s or Y’s, that is) is retrieved and the shot played again.
Positioning a wink. If easy, the wink is placed in the right area. Otherwise A or B play it.
Tactics. AB must do what they think XY would have done.

You would have to be very good indeed to win 6-1.

A Selection of Definitions from the ‘Tiddlywinks Dictionary of Lesser Known Terms’

Crimewink · Practices contravening the Rules.

Crud · To bomb, or violently desquop a squabble.

Field of Play · Area of mat in which interesting things are going on.

Hoodwink · (Noun) A deceptive shot. (Verb) To out-psyche the opponent.

Kickshot · A shot in which the wink is potted after bouncing on the mat.

Push-shot · An illegal shot in which the wink is pushed, not squidged.

Seduce · To tempt the opponent into trying a chancy shot.

Seduction Distance · Distance most likely to seduce the opponent; the distance at which the chance of successfully squopping is 50-50.

Squabble · A connected pile or group of winks.

Squabblesome · Liable to get involved in a squabble or squabbles.

Winkfield · The range of effective influence of a wink; the wink’s ‘field of force’.

Start of page 6

League Tiddlywinks

LONDON’S WILLIS CUP FINALISTS EMERGING

The 6-a-side London Tw League, now in its third season, has reached the 5th of its 7 rounds, and already the likely winners of each section have emerged. These winners will play in the Cup Final match for the Willis Cup in late March or early summer.

The League tables (win = 2 pts, draw = 1 pt) so far are:-

Division A

	Played	Won	Points
University C.	4	4	8
Interwink 1st	5	4	8
C. of Est. Man.	4	3	6
Gipsy Hill C.	4	1	2
St Gabriel’s C.	4	1	2
Battersea C.	4	1	2
Phillipa Fawcett C.	3	0	0

Division B

	Played	Won	Points
Bancrofts S.	5	5	10
Gradwink	5	4	8
Westfield C.	5	3	7
Chelsea-Bedford	5	3	6
Interwink 2nd	5	2	4
University C. 2nd	5	1	3
S. Mark and John C.	5	1	2
Southlands C.	5	0	0

[Note: C. = Colleges; S. = School]

The two sections of the League are of equal status; the division was made after the first season to simplify the administration of the 15 or so teams. The surprise of Division A was the defeat by the College of Estate Management of the Interwink 1st team, which won the Willis Cup in the previous 2 years. This placed the University College 1st team in a strong position, with a game in hand over Interwink. The clash in the 6th round between these two leading sides should be crucial. Division B is headed by two teams new to the League. Bancrofts, the only school team in the League, seem set to win the Division and a place in the Cup Final; Gradwink, perhaps their strongest rivals, a team of graduates and old hands, went down 28.5 – 34.5 to Bancrofts.

OXFORD v. CAMBRIDGE, 1964

by Our Man from Cambridge

The controversy as to the number of Varsity Tiddlywinks matches which have been played still continues. The 7th Annual Inter-Varsity Match (as it said on the programme produced by Oxford, though all past and present Cambridge players know very well that it was the 6th) was played in Oxford on 22nd February, and resulted in a decisive win for Cambridge by 81 1/6 to 30 5/6 points. Best of the Cambridge pairs were Messrs Ballantyne and Durrell on Mat 2 who dropped only one point over all four of their games.

The Cambridge team was exceptionally strong this year since it had lost only two members of the team that beat Oxford last year and included Charles Relie, an old International, and two new Internationals who will be playing in the forthcoming matches against Wales and Scotland. Oxford on the other hand were unfortunate in having lost all but three of their old quarter-blues. Even so the score does not truly reflect the quality of their play as many of the games hung in the balance until the closing minutes. One member of their team can also claim the distinction of being the first American to be selected for a Varsity side. It is to be hoped that R. J. Kelly III will become a leading figure in American winks on his return to the USA.

The umpire was Philip Moore, an ex-Master of the OUTS, who presented CUTwC with ‘The Inter-Varsity Trophy’. This new Trophy for Varsity matches was subscribed by the past-presidents and past-masters of CUTwC and the OUTS.

Cambridge also won the 2nd team match, the ‘Cippi’ scoring 83 1/2 points to the Oxford ‘Dodos’ 28 1/2.

Start of page 7

AUNT GERTIE’S PROBLEM CORNER

Aunt Gertie has been unemployed since the first issue of The Winking World, because there appear to have been no winkers in distress! However, Auntie comes out of her enforced retirement at last.

From G. B. Wann, Kirkuk, Iraq: ‘As a very new group our Club was chary of approaching the Parent Body with a controversy which has arisen over the local interpretation of the Rules. However, the disappearance of a particularly loud-mouthed member and the subsequent discovery of his obscenely mutilated body behind a sand dune brought it home to us that diffidence has no place in the cut-and-thrust of International Tiddlywinks. The problem, briefly, is this:

As X is squidging his wink a ferocious water-buffalo tramps across the mat and squats over the pot; X’s wink, which may or may not have been destined for the pot, rebounds from the buffalo*s hide and comes to rest between its toes. What do we do?

An early reply would be appreciated since we can ill afford to lose any more members, particularly those whose subscriptions are in arrears.’ (Jan 1962)

—This is a tricky problem which will have great international repercussions, so I must refer the problem to the 1965 Congress; I will then send the reply in a plain envelope—Gertie.

THE SUSSEX MUSES

The Rev. Willis’s Tiddlywinks Anthem, which appeared in WW4, inspired the Mayfield Tiddlywinks Society in Sussex to write a song to the tune of the theme from Exodus:

We’ll squidge our winks and crawl into the fray,
We’ll pot the lot and win the day;
Heedless of winker’s knee we’ll squop the enemy,
As our squidgers zoom our faces loom with doom
For the enemy, for the enemy!

ADDRESSES

SECRETARY of ETWA — Guy Consterdine, 76 Ufton Road, London, N. 1.
(Also at Stonewick, Warninglid, Haywards Heath, Sussex)
TREASURER of ETWA — Stuart Clark: During vacation — 97 Norton Rd, Stourbridge, Worcs.
Term: 16 Perrycroft Rd, Bishopsworth, Bristol 5.

There are a number of changes to the list of addresses that appeared in WW4:-

New addresses:

ALTRINCHAM GIRLS G. S. — Miss C. Miller, 10 Wyngate Rd, Hale, Cheshire.
BRADFORD TECH — G. Ambler, Rosemount House, Clifton Villas, Manningham Lane, Bradford 8.
CONVENT H.C.J. — Head Mistress, Convent H.C.J., Sir Harry’s Rd, Birmingham 15.
LEEDS C. OF ART — A. Hardcastle, Secretary, Tiddlywinks Club, Leeds College of Art, Vernon St, Leeds 2, Yorkshire.
MANCHESTER HIGH SCHOOL FOR GIRLS — Daphne Twiss, 21 Wainwright Rd, Altrincham.
NORTHERN NOMADS — Ken Veitch, 29 Avon Rd, Hale, Cheshire.
ROYAL HOLLOWAY C. — Carole Gilpin, Tw Club, Royal Holloway College, Englefield Green, Surrey.
SALE G. S. — Peter Laxton, 4 Hough Green, Ashley, Altrincham, Cheshire.
ST JAMES YOUTH FELLOWSHIP — J. Lidell, 36 Cedar Ave, Enfield Highway, Enfield, Middx.

Changes of Address:

BOLTON SCHOOL — D. H. Turner, 28 Pall Birch Rd, Lostock, Bolton.
EASTHAMPSTEAD P.C. — Miss P. Armstrong, Easthampstead Park College, Wokingham, Berks.
EDINBURGH U. — Robert Williams, Cowan House, George Square, Edinburgh 8.
ESSEX INST. OF AG. — Robert Mackie, Essex Institute of Agriculture, Writtle, Chelmsford, Essex.
HEANOR G. S. — Secretary, Tiddlywinks Club, The Grammar School, Heanor, Derbs.
NCFT — R. Broomfield, Tiddlywinks Society, Students Union, National College of Food Technology, St George’s Avenue, Weybridge, Surrey.

Deaths: The following 5 clubs have ceased to exist — Flying Disc Tw Club, Glasgow University, and Hampton G.S.

The inclusion of a club in the list of addresses in any edition of The Winking World does not necessarily mean that the club has paid its affiliation fee to ETwA. ETwA would like to hear of new secretaries who take over the running of clubs after elections at this time of year.

Start of page 8, unnumbered

MONEY

Affiliation fees to ETwA for the calendar year 1964 are now due. These are ETwA’s main source of income, since money raised from tiddlywinks events is donated to the National Playing Fields Association. Affiliation to ETwA is of 2 kinds:

Club Membership — The annual subscription for clubs (consisting of at least 8 members) is 10/– for senior clubs (members over 18 years) and 5/– for junior clubs (members 18 or under).
Individual Membership — Individuals can keep in tough with tiddlywinks by taking up membership of ETwA, whether or not they are members of clubs. Subscriptions are 2/– per year for any number of years, or £1 for Life. Individual members are: Life — C. Flood, C. Relle, M. Crick, R. Glasscock, G. Kurtz, M. O’Shea; 10 Years — P. Villar; 5 Years — J. Rogers, R. Broomfield; 1 Year — C. Emery, A. Astles, P. Atkinson, S. Williams, J. Escritt, I. Simms.

Members receive all publications issued by ETwA. Postal orders and cheques should be made payable to the English Tiddlywinks Association.

AROUND THE WINKING WORLD

Tiddlywinks is now being played at a school in Oruro, Bolivia. Heanor G. S. 2nd VIII has, it is reported, played a postal match against the school team, which is coached by a former Derby schoolboy now in Bolivia.

The Scottish Tw Association reports that there are now only two active tw clubs in Scotland, Aberdeen and Edinburgh Universities. ScoTwA appeals for news of any other Scottish winkers, including exiles in England. Write to M. O’Shea at Aberdeen University. Scottish saying: ‘My squopping’s gone all to pot’.

Guinness have printed more scorecards for ETwA, and these are available free from the Secretary or Treasurer. They are a useful way of recording matches.

In January there was a flurry of publicity centred on the apparant apparent abolition of the ‘tiddly’ from tiddlywinks. Daily Sketch: ‘The Tiddly-Winks Association, which controls tiddly-winks in Britain, is campaigning to change the game’s name because it thinks the public associates it with drink. It aims to drop the ‘tiddly’ and make it just ‘winks’.’ This spurious report was featured in other national papers and on Radio Newsreel and television. It was the result of misreporting in a Stockport paper. But even an advertisement in The Times for temperature-regulating processes declared its surprise that ‘anyone could claim to control such an intrinsically uncontrollable pastime’. ETwA does not control the game so much as promote the enjoyment of it.

Altrincham G.S. report that since 1958, the year of the tw club’s foundation, 41 matches have been played, 33 of them won. In 1963 AGS played 15, winning 13 and scoring 1074 points and conceding 606. The club’s League Tournament was won by Atkinson and Wilkinson; the Knockout Tournament for the Altwinkem Trophy was won by Stephen Buckley and Andrew Noakes.

STOP PRESS

London Tw League

University College 1st beat Interwink 1st, 35-28.

University C. now certain of being in Willis Cup Final.

International

England overwhelm Welsh, 69-43. England scores:

Bild and Frost, 15 1/2
Relle and Breeze, 19
Crick and Villar, 22
Montague and Brown, 12 1/2

For Wales, Eifion Jones and David Griffiths on Mat 1 scored 16.

Wilkinson and Aspinall, 8
Beacham and Spiller, 9
Preston and Gardner, 10.

Spectators’ comments:

‘There were some very good games’
‘The sporting nature of the Welsh team in general; they were good—beat Bristol in the evening in Silver Wink match.

North American Tiddlywinks Association