MBG Member Biographies

This page contains a brief overview of the members of Morat's Boardgamers plus a list of the "Favourite Games" that each of us could not be without !!!!

Richard Parris

I was always into games right from my earliest memories as a child. Having no brother but two sisters meant that my gaming experiences were to begin with a rather solitary affair. I can remember playing Totopoly for months on end playing all players and providing detailed tables of results for each race. I avidly visited (and still do) Toy Shops to look at the board games. I bought copies of the usual stuff, The Waddingtons Years with Monopoly, Totopoly, Air Charter, Blast Off, Formula One, Air Charter, Spy Ring, 4000AD etc. I branched into games like Escape from Colditz, Finance, Airways, Microdot and Risk

At the same time I was heavily into wargames and bought quite a number of those too, Red storm rising, onslaught, Normandy, Panzer Leader and all the Wargamer magazine stuff.

I eventually ventured into Speed Circuit, Win Place and Show and Railway Rivals from Avalon Hill and games like Sorcerers Cave, Mystic Wood, Dragonlance, Heroquest etc.

I have the dubious honour of starting the boardgames club at my Grammar School and having many Saturdays spent playing rugby in th morning and boargames with the select few all afternoon and night.

After leaving school I ventured out into to wilds of Derbyshire to attain my HND and whilst at college as a project I made my first and only game entitled "Spaceways". This was a work of art. I spent months on it making intricatly detailed spaceships and a impressive colourful hard backed board. This was the complete game with professional cards and box graphics. It looked like "the real thing". My tutor remarked that either I was a blatant cheat having copied the game from someone else or I was in the wrong job !!!!

I was so pleased with it I sent it to Waddingtons hoping they would buy it. I did get a letter from them asking me to go and see them but crazily Leeds seemed a long way and girls began to figure !!!

Fool that I was, I never went and the game was returned to me. At college we continued to play the game and it was eventually forgotten. The biggest regret was that in the 32 house moves somehow it got lost and I have never seen it since. Perhaps one day I will have the time to recreate it ! 

For many years after my education, I busied myself with my career and with that and moving 32 times continued to lose many of these games. It wasn't until I moved to Cornwall in 1994 that I started to rebuild my collection. As is always the case it's far harder and more expensive to find these games the second time around !

This kind of brings us to the present where my passion for games has been rekindled by meeting my kindred spirit Bill Dove and my games collection continues to grow at a very alarming rate.

Below is my top ten games, this list is very likely to change almost continuingly as my tastes and exposure to all the new and wonderful games expand. As you can see the influx of German Games has somewhat infected the list !!!

Bill Dove

I guess my interest in board games started during the World Cup draw in 1965. I had gone to stay with one of my Cousins back home in the east end of London, my parents having moved to Surrey 4 years before. It was early January and we were nearing the end of the school holidays. I’d seen West Ham play once over the holiday period and all the presents had been stacked away in cupboards, most of which were never to see the light of day again.

Boredom set in so we decided to tackle Monopoly (a Christmas present), we were twelve years old then. I guess twelve year olds nowadays have more alternatives for passing away winter afternoons during school holidays. Anyway we played loads of games of Monopoly; we were both competitive but good losers (comes with being a West Ham supporter).

On my return home to Surrey I rushed out and bought a copy of Monopoly with vouchers I got for Christmas plus Spy Ring and Formula One. Games were not that popular in those days, apart from the annual airing at Christmas, I loved them dearly but nobody else was interested in my group of friends.

I was now working and studying at Charterhouse School in Godalming, my only exposure to indoor games of any sort was my love of Subbuteo, I played in the Surrey league for a couple of seasons (and yes even made the County team!!) This must have been in 1970/71. I still bought the odd board game though.

I moved jobs to work at the University of Surrey (having finished my education at Charterhouse) and hung my Subbuteo boots up in 1971 as my unsuccessful music career took off, you know how it is; work all day, travel miles to do a gig, get paid peanuts, build up loads of HP debt, round and round. Very enjoyable, wouldn’t have done anything different, met lots of people, made loads of friends, played in different bands etc, etc.

On the gaming front, I bought a copy of Diplomacy and soon entered the postal gaming hobby; this must have been in about 1973/4. The amateur magazines (‘zines) were excellent; although postal gaming is long winded it was sometimes the only way to experience the less well known games particularly if you lived in an area where there was a lack of opponents.

In 1975 I developed a game called Cricketboss, this was a postal Cricket Management game very loosely based on Soccerboss (Commercial game) that was running postally at that time. The game ran for three seasons in a ‘zine called Chimera and also spawned a number of versions of the game across the national postal gaming hobby (long after I finished running it). Even now its gets the occasional mention in dispatches some 25 years after its’ design.

In 1978 I joined the Ministry of Agriculture at Guildford as a Computer Programmer, it’s here where my games activities got going. I met a number of like-minded people and we all met regularly to play board games. At the same time I infiltrated the Dungeons & Dragons Club (not a great fan I’m afraid) got myself elected secretary and then started to introduce fantasy board games into the meetings, soon I had them playing Sorcerers Cave, Mystic Wood etc. When I eventually left the group they played little D&D but a lot of board games. In addition, I took up sprinting, found I was quite reasonable at it (11.2 PB for 100m) I won the MAFF Victor Ludorum for two years running for my efforts at 100m, 200m, long jump, high jump, and triple jump (oh and the relay). I also won medals at a number of local events at both 100m and 200m, sadly I took it up all too late, and I was in my late 20’s by then – one of my big regrets.

During the 80’s the games collection grew, well past the 500 by 1988 when we moved to Hampshire. By the time we got to Cornwall in 1991 the collection exceeded 1,000. The house we purchased had to have enough room to store them all.

1980 - 1995 saw a number to the major games conventions. I remember the good old days at the Royal Horticultural Halls in London, when Games Day meant more than just D&D and painted figures. I remember meeting Major Pat Reid promoting Colditz, Alan Parr inventor of United and later Fireside Football, Andrew Neil the Inventor of Kingmaker and Maureen Hiron of Quadwrangle and Continuo fame. I attended Midcon, Manorcon and Baycon; organised by the postal gaming hobby, all still going strong and always well worth a visit.

I continue to collect games, mostly but not exclusively German. Richard has recently rekindled my interest when he contacted me following a tip off about my games collection by one of my friends. We meet semi regularly but hopefully more regularly in the future to play board games. Personally it’s a great opportunity to blow the dust off many games previously retired to my loft. Hopefully we will inspire more people in Cornwall to sample the unique experience of playing competitive board games which stretch the mind and imagination far beyond my and most other peoples early experiences of Monopoly, Cluedo and Scrabble.

So what of me now, well I’m into my mid 40’s now. Still play the odd guitar session in the local pub and with some friends from time to time, yes I play board games, been challenged to a Subbuteo match by one of my colleagues at work, taken up golf, play the odd game of Euchre (which is popular in Cornwall) and run the local pub quiz team. You see it’s all still competitive, can’t help it I guess.