Murder Mystery
It’s inspired a film, a television series, a musical, a game show and a play, as well as numerous books and computer games. But did you know that internationally renowned board game ‘Cluedo’ was invented right here in our little corner of Birmingham?
Anthony Ernest Pratt was born on Brighton Road in Balsall Heath in 1903. He worked as a professional musician, travelling all over the world giving piano recitals on cruise ships and in country hotels. He would often have been present at popular ‘murder mystery’ evenings, which were all the rage amongst the landed elite. Dinner guests at sprawling country houses would be entertained by finding a ‘body’ in one of the rooms, and would spend the evening solving clues to discover which one of them was the ‘murderer’.
During the Second World War Anthony was living in Kings Heath, and worked in a factory making parts for tanks. "I was leaning on the fence of our King's Heath home and it dawned on me that this wretched war was killing this country's social life,” he told an interviewer in 1990. It was to combat this that he decided to develop a family board game, and came up with the idea that would eventually become ‘Cluedo’.
He filed the patent application in 1944, then approached Waddingtons, who went into production with the game in 1949. Anthony’s wife Elva produced the artwork for the original edition and it’s a widely held belief that the layout of the board was inspired by Highbury Hall.
Unlike the unfortunate Dr Black from his murderous board game, Anthony Pratt passed away peacefully in a Birmingham nursing home at the age of 90. He lived to see the game that he invented bolster the social life of millions of families, not just in this country during the war, but all over the world and for decades after.
Unlike the unfortunate Dr Black from his murderous board game, Anthony Pratt passed away peacefully in a Birmingham nursing home at the age of 90. He lived to see the game that he invented bolster the social life of millions of families, not just in this country during the war, but all over the world and for decades after.
Published in My Moseley and Kings Heath, October 2015.
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