Nostalgia: Board Games

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(Free-Press-Release.com) February 2, 2012 -- And yet, its creator remains a much bigger mystery than the game is to solve.

Unlike his multi-millionaire contemporaries who invented Monopoly and Scrabble, Anthony Pratt, from Kings Heath, died without fame or fortune in 1994.

His idea was to create a board game came about during the war when he was missing being able to socialise.

It was based on his love of murder mysteries and set in an English country house.

With his wife Elva sketching out the floor plan and Anthony developing the eccentric characters and range of weapons, the couple spent 18 months perfecting the game.

The first Cluedo game went on sale in 1949.

He had registered the patent for Cluedo in 1945 but he made his mistake in 1953, when the game was on the shelves – he signed over the royalties from overseas sales for £5,000.

A keen musician, the money enabled him to leave his job as a solicitors’ clerk and the family, now with a daughter called Marcia, moved to Bournemouth.

But, by the end of the decade, the British patents expired, and there was no more income from Cluedo sales.

Moving to a smaller house and eventually returning to work as a solicitors’ clerk, Anthony could only watch as his invention made millions – and he received nothing.

In 1980, the family returned to Birmingham.

Elva died soon after and Anthony developed Alzheimer’s. He spent his last years in a care home and died in 1994 aged 90.

In a graveyard in Bromsgrove, Worcestershire, is a simple headstone, with the inscription: “A Very Dear Father. Anthony E Pratt. Born 10 August 1903. Died 9 April 1994. Inventor of Cluedo. Sadly missed.”

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Article source - www.sundaymercury.net/lifestyle-news/nostalgia-history-midlands/2012/01/08/nostalgia-board-games-66331-30077548/

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