Mr Chad

Anonymous ‘Mr Chad’ card game, 1940s.

United Kingdom Card Games Humour Wartime

Anonymous ‘Mr Chad’ card game, 1940s. Rudimentary artwork and graphics in b/w only due to wartime shortages and constraints. The aim of the game is to construct sentences such as “Wot not frients”, “Wot a life”, “Wot! only a million” or “So Wot”, etc. and score points accordingly. See the Rules►

Above: ‘Mr Chad’ card game, anonymous, 1940s. "I can remember seeing Mr Chad slogans chalked on walls when I was a kid. It continued after the war was over as the shortages went on for a good while afterwards."

‘Mr Chad’ was used in a humourous way to draw attention to the shortages after WW2. During this period of austerity things we take for granted were unobtainable. ‘Mr Chad’ would make us smile with such captions as "WOT! No Oranges?", "WOT! No Petrol?", or for the ladies, "WOT! No Stockings?".

SOURCE: WW2 People's War is an online archive of wartime memories contributed by members of the public and gathered by the BBC. The archive can be found at bbc.co.uk/ww2peopleswar►

By Rex Pitts (1940-2021)

Member since January 30, 2009

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Rex's main interest was in card games, because, he said, they were cheap and easy to get hold of in his early days of collecting. He is well known for his extensive knowledge of Pepys games and his book is on the bookshelves of many.

His other interest was non-standard playing cards. He also had collections of sheet music, music CDs, models of London buses, London Transport timetables and maps and other objects that intrigued him.

Rex had a chequered career at school. He was expelled twice, on one occasion for smoking! Despite this he trained as a radio engineer and worked for the BBC in the World Service.

Later he moved into sales and worked for a firm that made all kinds of packaging, a job he enjoyed until his retirement. He became an expert on boxes and would always investigate those that held his cards. He could always recognize a box made for Pepys, which were the same as those of Alf Cooke’s Universal Playing Card Company, who printed the card games. This interest changed into an ability to make and mend boxes, which he did with great dexterity. He loved this kind of handicraft work.

His dexterity of hand and eye soon led to his making card games of his own design. He spent hours and hours carefully cutting them out and colouring them by hand.

Mr Chad

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