The recently formed U3A Scrabble group was going well, attracting a reasonable number of players until that fateful July meeting.

As usual on the third Wednesday of the month promptly at 3 pm the teams arrived at the village hall armed with their boards and dictionaries for a couple of hours of brain exercise.

This particular meeting was well attended with twenty people making five tables of four.

It was the custom of the group that the teams be selected by each member drawing a number out of a hat, thus ensuring that the teams were different each month.

There was the usual crowd of ex-English teachers, book worms and a handful of people from the writing group.

At this July meeting Table 3 consisted of Doris, Stan, Cyril and Elsie.

Doris was a retired junior school teacher, a spinster whose unfortunate lack of physical attractiveness and shy narrow mindedness led to her having lived a somewhat puritanical life.

Stan had worked in an office.  He was by contrast very broad minded and in his day had fancied himself as a bit of a lady’s man.

Cyril and Elsie were pleasant well read people who would pass un-noticed in any setting.

It was Elsie who started the first game and she couldn’t believe her luck when after some deep thought and shuffling of tiles on her rack was able to use all seven letters with the word ‘premium’.  By putting the P on the double letter square she scored 13 – a highly creditable start to the game.

None of the other players actually heard Cyril mutter ‘smart arse’ but already there was an air of tension around the table.

It was his turn next and using the P of premium was able to add OSER down the board to get ‘poser’.  Having covered a double word square he scored 14 points.

And so the game progressed with the board getting ever tighter and the words getting shorter as a consequence.

It was towards the end of the game when the players were stuck with the last few tiles that things went wrong.

Doris had managed to use up all but one of her letters by adding ‘face’ to the front of the word ‘less’ to get a decent score for ‘faceless’.

Stan’s turn and he only had the letters UKZ and C.  The scores were very close and he knew that if someone was able to end the game his still having the Z would incur a 10 point deduction and likely make him the lowest scorer. After some time struggling to use the Z he felt he had no choice but to add UCK down from the F of faceless.

Doris was outraged and shouted out loud ‘How dare you put that on my ‘face’!

‘Don’t you shout at me’ retorted Stan ‘It’s in the dictionary – look’.

‘Look up that word? I would never do such a thing!’.

‘No – I don’t suppose you ever have you ugly…’

His voice was silenced by Doris hitting him hard around the face with her handbag.

Susan, Stan’s wife leaped up from the next table and waded into Doris ‘How dare you attack my husband? He’s a decent man’.

‘Decent! Look what he’s just put on my face!’ Shouting at the top of her voice she exclaimed, pointing to the board, ‘There – on my F in Face!’  All the men in the group erupted into laughter and within seconds the whole Scrabble group was transfixed by the spectacle of two elderly women attacking each other with their handbags.

A game old boy called George on table 1, clearly enjoying the entertainment called out ‘Go on Susan – you give her whatfore!!’

Just then Michael, the convenor jumped to his feet and in his commanding voice called out ‘Order – Order!’ as Stan had intervened to stop the two women fighting.

The August meeting of the Scrabble group was a much quieter affair with Doris, Stan, Susan and George all barred from attending.

However news of the incident must have spread around the whole U3A because the group now had 8 tables comprising the usual Scrabble enthusiasts plus others with just a passing interest in the game but a lust for excitement.

Graham Witherick

July 2025