[jamesicus]

Whist drives were very popular in Burnley (and, I am sure, elsewhere) especially during WW2 and the late 1940s. My mother and my aunties participated just about every week -- they were mostly middle-aged to older ladies events. They were mostly sponsored by Churches, although my mother used to attend the ones at the Mechanics Institute on Manchester Road in Burnley once a month. Each participant paid a modest entry fee and the monies were returned as prizes to the winners after the sponsoring organization took its cut.

As outlined elsewhere, Whist is played with four players -- two partnerships -- at a table using a full deck of cards which are dealt out one at a time to each player, left to right, so that each player has thirteen cards. Trumps rotate with each deal -- clubs, diamonds, hearts and spades. The player to the left of the dealer leads off a card and each succeeding player must follow in suit, or trump, if unable to do so. After each player has played a card the highest card or trump captures the trick -- thirteen tricks are available for each deal. Partners attempt to aid each other by subtle card signals and other strategies. In Whist drives partners are assigned to different tables after playing four hands at a table (through the trump rotation). The partnership with the highest trick total after all tables have been played is the winner -- there were usually prizes for 2nd and 3rd place. Whist drives were the Bingo games of their day and were very popular and well attended.

Whist was also a popular family card game of the period -- I used to play at my grandparent's house just about every Friday night, partnering with an uncle who was a very good card player. If Whist appears to be a very simple form of Contract Bridge, well it was the forerunner of that game -- without the intricacies of bidding, playing with an exposed dummy, conventions, etc. I am a fanatical Contract Bridge devotee -- I attribute much of my success in that game to my early exposure to Whist.

James