If anyone had told me this time last year that I would be playing regular games of rummy almost every day I would have said they were mad. However here I am. Hardly a day goes by when I do not suggest playing a game of cards to my mum. And not any old game of cards, it has to be rummy. I have tried to change the games occasionally and so have our visitors as it does get a bit monotonous. No other game will do though. If you change the game she will continue to play rummy rules to the new game and get herself confused when you try and tell her it is wrong. So I don’t change the game and I warn visitors not to. It’s not worth it.

I discovered the soothing effect of rummy when I used to visit my mum last year in Udston Hospital which offers long term care for elderly patients. She was sectioned there. During the day I would take her out for walks round Strathclyde Park and in the evening we would play cards. It both gave us something to do and it seemed to calm her down when she was getting in a state about something real or imaginary. Generally it gives her something to focus on I think and it is something she can control. It’s not too difficult especially when there are only two people playing. It focuses on numbers which she can still deal with. It is short. She can still win at it – again especially with only two people playing.

For me it works because you can play anywhere. A pack of cards is easily packed. Most of the time she goes into a card playing mode almost the minute the cards appear. I can also tell from how she plays how both her mood is and how lucid she is. Even if she loses if she has cards that are nearly there, then she is lucid. However if she has a jumbled collection of cards or she is throwing away cards I know she wants then she is having a bad day. She can be playful, putting down six cards and claiming to be out.

I have never known her to refuse a game of cards. “Oh I haven’t played cards in years!” is the usual retort to a suggestion of a game. The fact that she has played almost every day in the last nine months is completely lost on her. All sorts of people have learnt rummy in order to play with her. Shamalee, her Sri Lankan carer while I am at work, is now a dab hand at rummy. I discovered that mum had taught her adaptations of the game which were not quite correct when we actually all three sat down to play. When I come in from work, Shamalee is playing and I can just take over her hand. When my brother and his family came to visit, his children had to learn rummy. I watched and listened to the rather bizarre tableau of my brother sitting in between the two kids teaching them in Dutch to play rummy with my mum. The Dutch did not impact on her at all. She was more pissed off that my brother seemed to win all the time.  

I had wanted to provide here a history of rummy but a quick surf of the net produced no definitive answer as to where rummy came from. Mexico, Spain, America, Japan, China have all been posited as its country of origin.   http://rummy.com/rummyhistory.html  in fact concluded the following: “it can be said that Rummy games have been propelled by their popularity. They have travelled across geographic borders, carrying the games onward in a relay fashion whilst gathering variation on the way. “

This is certainly true of my experience. I learnt rummy as part of a card game playing family. I distinctly remember the card table we had in the house when I was growing up. It was a trolley which opened up to reveal a green felt covered table with space underneath for keeping all sorts. No idea what happened to that trolley. The amount of card and board games we played when we were growing up was quite something.  Cards then also came into their own when I began travelling. Small enough to squeeze into any rucksack and providing hours of fun anywhere, at any time, with anyone.  Killing time waiting on buses, planes, trains. Chilling out on beaches. Getting to know new people.  Learning new games in different countries with different people. It also travels well for my mum – cards come with us on any journeys – we never leave home without them.