Bingo!

We didn't know it as bingo back then.  We called it housey-housey.  My father owned a set comprising perhaps a couple of dozen or more cards measuring - according to my memory, which is probably faulty - about 8 inches by 4.  Each card had the numbers printed in exactly the same way as the cards used today.  Then there was a large sheet of paper with nine rows of 10 squares each printed on it, the squares numbered from 1 to 90.  There was a cloth bag with 90 plastic tablets numbered (you've got it) from 1 to 90.  And what seemed like thousands of squares of cardboard cut from ceral packets and the like.  We wouldn't want to cross out the numbers on our cards as this would mean they couldn't be used again, so the cardboard squares were used to cover the numbers as they were called.

My brother and I thoroughly enjoyed a game or three with our parents.  Nowadays I can think of little that I would find more boring.  It's almost as boring acting as caller, which I do from time to time at retirement homes where the Lions organise sessions for the old folks, many of whom are younger than the Lions!

You will understand from what I have already written that I have had no difficulty in resisting any temptation to sign up for on-line bingo sessions, especially those for Foxy Bingo whose television advertisements I find excruciating.  All the same, I'm going to treat you to their latest, but only because it was filmed here in Brighton on the Palace Pier so you can catch a few glimpses of the city.