FOR six out of ten of us, Christmas would not be complete without board games.
And in homes throughout the UK, millions of families will sit down to murder-mystery favourite Cluedo, which is 75 years old this month.
Approximately 150 million copies of the game have been sold worldwide during that period. Players are required to deduce the killer’s name, the location of the murder, and the weapon used in the game.
Despite this success, the creator of Cluedo, Anthony Pratt, missed out on a significant fortune. He is responsible for inventing Cluedo and its iconic characters such as Colonel Mustard, Reverend Green, and Miss Scarlet.
Cluedo became the world’s second-best-selling game, alongside Scrabble and after Monopoly. Pratt should have been a multi-millionaire considering the game’s immense popularity.
But he gave away the foreign rights to it for just £5,000 shortly before Cluedo hit the big time.
Anthony and his wife Elva created the game in the kitchen of their Birmingham home in 1943 to stave off boredom during World War Two blackouts.
Pratt was a talented pianist who played concerts for the rich and famous across Europe and the UK and on cruise liners before the war.
At the end of each recital the aristocrats would finish off the evening with a murder-mystery game that would fascinate crime detective novel-lover Anthony.
So when he went back to the West Midlands to work in a munitions factory, his mind kept returning to the post-piano fun.
While the air raid sirens went off in 1943, Anthony and Elva used their time to recreate those murder-mystery evenings in miniature, by inventing a board game.
Anthony put together the idea and the rules, creating the weapons and characters, while artistic Elva designed the playing board and box lid.
Originally named Murder, the game had ten characters, including Mr Gold, Mr Brown, Miss Gray and Mrs Silver. Colonel Mustard was Colonel Yellow and the original weapons included a bomb and a poison-filled syringe.
Elva realised they were on to a good thing and encouraged her husband to find a publisher.
Anthony pitched the game to Norman Watson, a senior executive with Waddingtons, the top game manufacturer in Europe at the time.
Bosses loved the game but Murder! was too scandalous a title in 1947. So, Waddingtons and Anthony settled on the name Cluedo — a mix of Clue and Ludo, another of the company’s popular titles.
The number of characters dropped to six and it was thought Colonel Yellow was too cowardly a name for a military man.
Waddingtons executives also changed some of the weapons — the bomb became a candlestick and the syringe became the lead pipe.
Due to wartime shortages Cluedo was not launched until 1949 in the UK and it also went on the market in the US under the name Clue, but it was not an instant success.
Cluedo did bring in enough money in quarterly cheques for Anthony to give up his job as a solicitor’s clerk and become a full-time pianist in an orchestra as he tried to invent new games.
In the US, as interest grew, American firm Parker Brothers offered Waddingtons a tempting deal — give it full rights to the game in return for the UK rights to Monopoly, the world’s best-selling game.
With Cluedo not selling well here, Waddingtons approached Anthony in 1953 and offered him £5,000 in exchange for the international rights.
And with a newly born daughter to look after, he accepted it. But the decision would cost the Pratts millions as the game went on to sell like wildfire in the States and earn Parker Bros a fortune.
Nearly penniless
It has sold in more than 40 countries and has been updated a number of times.
There have also been best-selling Simpsons, Game Of Thrones and Star Wars versions. In 2017, Cluedo made it into the National Toy Hall of Fame.
Spin-offs include a hit movie in 1985, a Broadway show in 1997 and a TV series in 2011 as well as a number of best-selling video games.
This year’s UK stage outing Cluedo 2 was set to star Helen Flanagan but the former Corrie actress stepped down for medical reasons.
When Anthony got his cheque for £5,000, he gave up work, bought a sweet and tobacco shop in Alcester, Warwicks, and continued trying to invent other board games.
The family moved to Bournemouth in 1959 where the couple bought a block of holiday flats which they rented out to holidaymakers to earn a good living for a while.
But money became tight again and Anthony went back to work as a solicitor’s clerk before he sold his holiday business and returned to Birmingham in 1980.
In 1994 he died in a nursing home nearly penniless.
My mother thought that they’d been cheated a little.
Inventor’s daughter Marcia
In an interview, he once said: “I got a quarterly cheque — then one time a letter came with a cheque to say the patent had expired. It said there would be no more cheques.
“We did not mind as Cluedo had been one of life’s bonuses.”
In comparison the inventor of Monopoly, Charles Darrow, and Scrabble creator Alfred Butts died multi-millionaires.
In 2013 a blue plaque was put up on the Pratts’ semi at 9 Stanley Road, Birmingham, stating that Cluedo was invented there.
The couple’s daughter Marcia, interviewed on YouTube, said: “Dad invented it during the Second World War. My parents used to describe it as a time of great boredom.”
Of the £5,000 payment, Marcia said: “It would be worth about $175,000 today. I’d just been born, so he probably thought it was a responsible thing to do.
“My mother thought that they’d been cheated a little.
“But my father was philosophical about it. In the end, they were just pleased it was such a success.
“I mean, I’m very proud that he’s left such a mark on the world.”
