A Bridge Too Far

Today

I was very happy to talk to my brother the other day and learn that he's definitely been chosen to represent Britain playing bridge at Beijing in October.

It's easy to forget that some less athletic sports have their Olympics as well. My brother is firmly of the opinion that bridge is wholly a game of skill, success being dependent on how you manage the cards and on the language and intuition you develop with your partner.

He's always loved bridge, but many years running his business forced him to take a lower profile. Now he's able to rediscover his full potential.

In My Day

Earlier blogs will show that I'm no card player. And when my brother decided to make bridge his life, rather than his hobby back in 1969 or thereabouts it didn't seem quite real.

For part of the of time he worked at a club on the Kilburn road called Stefan's. As well as offering members hospitality he also played for the club; a delicate balancing act involving much tact and skill.

Somehow I found myself involved in the periphery of this strange world. I was asked to provide design ideas for its decoration and refurbishment, which I did, although I never followed up this interior design opportunity.

I frequently worked in the tiny little kitchen making tea, coffee, sandwiches and light snacks. These were taken while playing and I would carry the orders into the upper room. Here members, bleary-eyed from too much smoking, drinking and bridge playing into the early hours would sit, frittering away their lives, when they could have been earning good money as doctors and lawyers. It was a world of unopened curtains and windows, a perpetual half-light which seemed to carry through into the flats in which many of them lived, in Maida Vale, Highgate or St John's Wood.

They none of them seemed to have children or other responsibilities and all seemed to have dingy complexions and many of the men had roving hands.

I can't say that I was sorry when other work opportunities came my way. And I must say that, despite his passion for the game, my brother remained level-headed enough not to get sucked in.

The very best of luck in Beijing, bruv!