I first played bridge when I was 14. A friend at school (Paul) was reading a James Bond book (‘Moonraker’?) in which 007 outwits the villain at the bridge table. Paul didn’t understand this part, but he knew his grandfather played bridge so went to him for help. His grandfather (Don) told Paul to find three friends and he’d teach them how to play bridge. I wasn’t one of these three, but two of them didn’t take to the game at all and dropped out, so even if Don played they were down to three. I was drafted in to make up the numbers (a bit like my appearances for the County team these days).

We played once a week, every week – lounge bridge rather than kitchen bridge, perhaps. After six months Don decided we ought to enter the local (Harrow) league and the Middlesex Cup (the equivalent of our President’s Cup). We played stone-age Acol (virtually all doubles penalty – so when I play with Sandy I am reverting to something I first learnt years ago!) with attitude signals on partner’s lead, and no signals at all on declarer’s lead. I find it hard to understand how we ever defended a hand correctly but, despite this handicap, we got promoted in the league and reached the semi-final of the knockout - we clearly relied on fluke! Don, who was 67 years old when he taught us, had in his youth played with Doug Smerdon before giving up competitive bridge. As luck would have it, our opponents in the cup semi-final were Waterlow/Smerdon and Oram/Oram. Don hadn’t seen Smerdon for a while and had been telling him how well he thought we were coming along. Imagine his embarrassment when we were well and truly hammered, losing by over 100 imps. Don was mortified and, even if we had only been playing for about a year, I have to say I remember our performance as rather inept. The fourth member of the team, and my partner, was Steve Root.

I think we played in the league for one more year but after that we left school for different sixth-form colleges and stopped playing. So, although I learnt while I was at school, it wasn’t organised by the school.

I hardly played a hand for the next five or six years, until I came to Oxford to attempt an ultimately-doomed DPhil. In my first week, I couldn’t find the room where the bridge club met (probably because I was wandering around Walton St instead of being within the Somerville College walls). I had mentally given myself a limit of 5 more minutes to find it when, owing to the room fortuitously being on the College boundary with Walton St and the back gate being open, I stumbled upon it. Bear in mind my limited experience of duplicate consisted of teams-of-four matches. So joining in with a whole roomful of card players was all new to me and, as I played my first pairs duplicate, I didn’t even know how it was scored. In some sense, then, that was also a first experience of bridge.

(Incidentally, I met Steve Root again a few years ago. He too had stopped playing after we left school only to take it up again many years later. Interestingly, his team won the Middlesex Cup this year…)