It was an e-mail from the public relations department of a games manufacturer which prompted me to write this post, that, and a touch of post Festivities writer’s block.

Jim Walker a cabbie colleague of mine who grew up in the shadow of Tower Bridge has devised a three-dimensional board game “Bridge Up”. Characters like Little Maxi the London taxi move around the board while players have to answer trivia questions about the River Thames and the history of Tower Bridge. And to celebrate the launch of his board game Jim has been given the rare honour of pushing the button to open the London’s iconic bridge.

[A]fter that e-mail I remembered that my daughter had, as more of a joke, from a car boot sale bought for me another taxi based game – London Cabbie – which I’ve found recently on eBay retailing for £65.

The London Cabbie Game (1971) was invented by Drakes, Jarvis, Walsh and Gluck, which sound more like an Eastend solicitor practice than games inventors. The aim of the game is to make money, work out the best routes to get passengers to their destinations, whilst avoiding traffic jams. The four inventors clearly know something about cabbies as the board reassuringly doesn’t go South of the River.

Another London cab based game is TAXI, which worked on the premise that it was more fun negotiating London streets on cardboard than on tarmac. This rather frivolous 1960’s game has among its passengers model Susan Scantly, Bubbles Dimpleby and Felix Softpad.

Although firmly stuck in that era, and featuring an old FX cab on the cover, whose driver looks as if he can afford to ignore a rather smart gentleman hailing him standing at the front of a queue, board game does at least cross the river, if only to the major stations. What is lacking, which no self-respecting cabbie today would be without, is a pair of boxing gloves or an England football shirt hanging from the mirror.

When Rachel Lowe pitched her game Destination London to The BBC’s Dragon’s Den entrepreneurs they criticised her in a variety of ways, turning down her idea. The game went on to become Hamley’s best selling game of 2004. She invented the game from her experience working as a cabbie in Portsmouth while studying for a law degree.

Players are, you’ve guessed it, cabbies, moving through the city visiting tourist sites accruing money. The format has been modified for other cities and has even a Destination Hogwarts.

Victorian London played a massive part in how we celebrate Christmas today.

William Sandys published Christmas carols and Christmas plays; Charles Dickens wrote A Christmas Carol; Sir Henry Cole invented Christmas cards; Thomas J Smith invented the Christmas cracker; and Prince Albert encouraged us all to put Christmas trees in our homes, like good Germans. It is a custom we all practise today.

[T]hroughout the Middle Ages a midwinter festival associated with Christmas was celebrated with feasting, dancing, games, boozing and general merriment. Things ran into difficulties from the Reformation, particularly with Puritan elements, whereby many Protestants saw Christmas as being either a pagan or Popish celebration. Christmas was actually banned by a Puritan-dominated parliament in 1647. Protests and riots followed, notably in Canterbury.

Matters improved throughout the Georgian period, but by the early 19th Century, Christmas as a celebration was once again in decline.

Then, in 1833, London solicitor and antiquarian William Sandys published Christmas Carols Ancient and Modern, comprising 80 carols which included classics such as The First Noel and God Rest You Merry Gentlemen. He published an updated version, called Christmas-tide, Its History, Festivities and Carols, With Their Music, in 1852. In addition, Sandys wrote several Christmas plays and other Christmas-related works.

Charles Dickens. As we all know, he wrote A Christmas Carol, which was published on 19th December 1843. The effect of the book on the revival of Christmas cannot be underestimated. Apart from adding to the language of Christmas, with scrooge, bah, humbug and all the rest of it, the book revived the Christmas tenets of family, good cheer, feasting, gift-giving and charity. The phrase Merry Christmas was pretty much invented by Dickens.

Christmas cards were first produced in London by Sir Henry Cole in 1843, the same year as A Christmas Carol was published. Sir Henry was instrumental in introducing the penny post a few years previously, so we can see where the shrewd fellow was going with this one. Themes on early cards were celebratory rather than religious.

Christmas crackers were invented by a sweet manufacturer called Thomas J Smith of London in 1847. Whereas we now have a toy inside the cracker, Smith originally used one of his sweets. He came up with the idea of the message inside and the explosion on pulling the cracker.

The Christmas tree is a German innovation which was introduced to Britain by Queen Charlotte, consort of George III. Prince Albert further promoted the use of Christmas trees, since when they became a fixture in the British home. The spruce Christmas tree in Trafalgar Square is a thank-you gift to the people of London from the people of Oslo for British assistance in defeating Germany in World War II. The tradition began in 1947. The plaque reads:

This tree is given by the city of Oslo as a token of Norwegian gratitude to the people of London for their assistance during the years 1940-45.

Christmas Day was always a customary as opposed to a statutory holiday having the same rest-day status of Sundays. It only reached the statute books under the Banking and Financial Dealings Act 1971. Boxing Day was established as a public holiday a full century earlier under the Bank Holidays Act of 1871 and is a peculiarly British tradition, only really celebrated in Britain and Commonwealth countries.

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My thanks go to Mike Paterson for permission to reproduce Christmas History Trivia which appeared on his London Historians blog. London Historians was launched in August 2010 as a club for Londoners who’d like to learn more about their city’s history. They will be organising visits, talks, walks, social events and discounts to selected historical attractions and exhibitions. The site features a ton of useful information to give you a single launch pad to everything you want to find out about London’s history. Members are invited to contribute information and reviews to the site, if you like reading about London’s history you won’t be disappointed by following this link.