The History, Mystery and Stories of Playing Cards

The weekly meeting of the Rotary Club of Kirkcaldy was held at the Dean Park Hotel on Tuesday, 21^st March, 2017. There were 29 persons at the meeting including 1 guest.

The meeting was started by President Mark Rossiter who welcomed everyone including the only guest, Rotarian Jim Boyd of The Rotary Club of Glenrothes who also was our speaker for today.

President Mark Rossiter informed the Club that last Wednesday 7 Rotarians from our Club had visited the Windmill Campus – everyone was highly impressed with the facilities there, President Mark also promoted the jam that was being sold to raise funds for Polio Plus. He encouraged everyone to buy it as the proceeds from the sales would be used to eradicate polio. Several members have bought it.

President Mark also mentioned that the Kirkcaldy Railway Station was looking very nice due to the several new plants which have been planted recently. Alice Soper is looking for volunteers to help in the garden. Alice also mentioned that one of the planters on Platform 2 had been wrecked by some of the builders who uprooted all the plants in it as a used it as their tool bench. Scot Rail has been informed and efforts are under way to find out who did this with a view to getting compensation.

Immediate Past President announced the winners of the 200 Club draw this month.

Acting Secretary Ron McGill informed the Club that The Rotary Club of Glenrothes was having their 60^th Dinner at Balbirnie House Hotel on the 28^th of April. Tickets were £25 and those interested were advised to contact Secretary Sharon Munro.

Our President then introduced Rotarian Jim Boyd from The Rotary Club of Glenrothes, the speaker for today. He spoke to us about playing cards and the title of his talk was – “The History, Mystery and Stories of Playing Cards”. He stated that playing cards possibly were invented in China around 1120 AD – could be earlier. They are believed to have spread to Egypt during the era of Mamluk control and from there to Europe – possibly brought over by the wandering gypsies.

He said that over the years playing cards were made of various shapes and seizes and showed us several slides of various designs of playing cards. He stated that there are several types of games one could play with playing cards like – “Snap, Bridge, Rummy, Poker, Canasta, etc.” He also stated that different types of games are played in different countries and that the way of shuffling cards also varied from country to country.

He mentioned some special names and he gave examples – 4 of Clubs is called “The Devil’s Bed Post” as the way the clubs are located resemble bed posts; “A Dead Man’s Hand” is two black Aces and two Black Eights”; 9 of Diamonds is called “The Curse of Scotland” because the Duke of Chamberlain after Culloden 1746 used the back of this card for infamous order to slaughter wounded rebels; Crown of Scotland had only 9 diamonds because people were not able to buy anymore; in game Pope Joan, 9D is Pope (top card), detested by Scots.

He told us of the dishonest teams who operated in London and made large amounts of money by cheating people – usually these teams had a ringleader called “Cracker Parker” who recruited and trained 3 to 4 teams of 6 to 7 people to cheat passers with playing cards. The various members of the teams were called – “Tosser, Shills, Look-outs and Smoother”.

The talk was enjoyed by all and Past President Les Soper gave the official vote of thanks.

The Raffle raised £35

The next meeting of the Rotary Club of Kirkcaldy will be held on Tuesday, 28^th March, 2017 and it will be at the usual lunch time.