Fives & Threes

Pictured, a rather old set of dominoes, still housed in their tinplate box, in lovely nick. I really can't remember how I came to have them, but there you go. As far as I can tell - knowing full well that the brand pre-dates my seventy-plus years - that this was a cheap line of cigarettes by W.D & H.O Wills sometime around the 1930s. That's as much as I know. What I do know, though, is that dominoes, like darts, bar billiards and cribbage, used to be the staples of pub games when I started frequenting the many ale-houses of Birmingham and the Black Country back in my youth.Though I almost never play any of these games any more - no-one else seems particularly interested to partake of these pastimes - I always liked a game of crib, darts or dommies, back in the day.

In fact, one of the few things - alongside jazz - that my late father-in-law and I bonded over was a game of dominoes whilst consuming a pint or three of decent ale. It's a deceptively simple game that many would consider trivial, but played by a master, it's a different game altogether: a game that rewards memory and combinatorial skills in equal measure, where a good player will always win out over the uninitiated. I wiled away many an hour with Alec, [my father-in-law] without once drifting into the otherwise conversational minefields of the question of my ability to provide for my family. In the end, dominoes, jazz and beer were the safe ground we tacitly agreed to settle upon. And I must say that truly, I still miss the man and those little contests in the pub...