One of my favourite memories of Christmas was playing cards with my family. We always played ‘500’ — not rummy and not bridge, but a combination of the two. The rules were unusual; with every new deal, there was a different trump suit and then the jacks of that colour got promoted to ‘bowers’. The bower of the trump suit became the second highest card in the deck, just below the joker. I know, it sounds complicated, and it was, so it took a while to learn the rules of the game. I can’t tell you anymore who won or lost all those years ago, but I vividly remember one thing. My mother, who had played the game longer than anyone else, would ‘come unglued’ if someone did not follow the rules. She accused them of playing with a different deck of cards!
