Hurrah For Jigsaws!

Radio Record, Volume VII, Issue 5, 11 August 1933, Page 44

Hurrah For Jigsaws!

New Puzzle Game Making the World Forget Its Troubles PARE a tear for Silas K. Winterbottom who ... but let us tell you the whole, sad tale. Six months ago Silas saw a jigsaw puzzle in a shop window-a rare, beautiful puzzle it was, showing a cow jumping over a moon or something artistic like that. But that wasn’t all-it had 10,000 pieces! So Silas, who was a man of strength and determination, bought the 10,000-piece puzzle and got a carrier’s van to take it home. The first evening he fitted 10 pieces into their allotted places; the second evening the cow’s horn and a lump of the moon were placed in position; the third evening-but enough to say that Silas worked on that puzzle for six months, night after night burning gallons and gallons of midnight oil. Came the time when the last piece was to be placed officially in position. The mayor couldn’t attend, but all Silas’s relatives did-it was the greatest moment of our hero’s life. Slowly he advanced toward the table with the last piece-the end of the cow’s tail-and everyone got ready to cheer. All but the dog (we forgot to tell you that Silas owned a dog), which got ready to spring. And as the last piece of the puzzle hit the table so did the dog. (The Jigsaw Association of Weedons sent Silas a lovely wreath.)

UT, so long as you don’t start juggling about with 10,000-piece puzzles and develop jigsaw-puzzleitis, the game can possess no end of fascination. Like a crossword puzzle craze, jigsaws are now sweeping. almost every country in the world (Tibet has not yet fallen, but we’re expecting a report any day), and it is rumoured that some of the pictures in the Royal Academy are shortly to be cut up into jigsaws to keep the attendants amused on quiet days. Jigsaws are not new, of course. That’s what, King Alfred was doing when he burned the cakes, and it is now fairly definitely established that Nero did not fiddle while Rome burned -he jigsawed. The last jigsaw craze was just be fore the War. It was revived after the .conflict, when thousands of returned ‘soldiers passed their time with this game in the hospitals. Then the puzzles fell into oblivion-mah jong came, saw and conquered, crossword puzzles likewise, yo-yo and a dozen other things. But jigsaws have returned and are hay‘ing a great run. Near the end of last year an American advertising agency hit on the idea of boosting sales for well-known products by giving away a free jigsaw to every purchaser of these goods. As the idea is an old one and.copy: right was not available, in a matter of

a week or two every big manufacturer in the country was giving away jigsaw puzzles with his goods. America hit hard on the jigsaw puzzle craze-and when America bites that means that every man, woman and child in the

country is going to think of nothing else for months to come. The people who climbed hot and breathless on the morning trains may have forgotten their breakfasts, but they had their jigsaw puzzles and their puzzle boardsfolding boards which they would spread out on their knees-and the journey to the city was fully employed. Libraries were started and the people who were able to put together a 100piece puzzle in half an hour were qualified to enter the inner temple and put together puzzles with thousands of pieces to the soft music of tom-toms. Compétitions -were held: Little Woop Woop challenged fhe crack team from Burgville (with 3.2 per cent. beer in the back room of the village hall for the onlookers)-jigsaws were being more talked about than the national deficit. The craze hit Wurope-London’s Bright Young Things who usually felt like jigsaws on the "morning after" now stayed home at nights and played round with pieces of the "Aquitania Leaving Southampton." © An enthusiast, leaving England for , Austxalia.

managed to smuggle past the Customs and soon Australia was alight. In two months one Sydney firm has manufactured over two million puzzles, and it is said, by people who live reckoning out these things, there is one jigsaw puzzle and a half to every person in Australia, and that if they were placed end to end they would reach to the moon and back-non-stop service, Anyway we won't argue about a _ little thing like that. New Zealand has been bitten pretty badly, too. A Very Important Personage in Parliamentary circles is re ported to have told a Wellington resident that Mr, Coates is going to make a jigsaw puzzle of the next Budget and send a free set to all the taxpayers in the country-such a nice thoughtful way of breaking unpleasant news. There may be one or two people who sneer at the frivolity of jigsaws-take no notice of them. They probably have even worse habits-and even their best friends won’t tell them. But let us cheer King Jigsaw. He won’t stay for ever, So we must make the most of him while he’s here and give him a right royal welcome.