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JANINA
TRZEBINSKA WAS A QUITE
EXTRAORDINARY BRIDGE PLAYER !
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"Three
No Trumps" (her favourite bid)
Coastweek
- - The game of Bridge is played throughout
the World by a vast array of different people and at many levels of
expertise.
Nowhere is it played with more enthusiasm
than in the ladies' groups in Mombasa and especially at the Wednesday
morning 'Duplicate' game.
Some years ago there was no keener player
than Janina (Jane to her friends and her family) Trzebinska.
For many years, together with her regular
partner Christa Haller, she dominated the tables as a forceful and
determined player.
It is probably true to say that she was
certainly one of or possibly the best player that the ladies group
ever had.
Jane was a life-long player of the game.
One of the earliest memories her son Sbish
has of her is hiding under the Bridge table while she played with her
friends.
In the last few years she was plagued by
eyesight problems which forced her to stop playing 'Duplicate' but she
was playing her usual Friday morning game with understanding friends
until her last illness.
Once Bridge was no longer in her life she
turned her face to the wall and waited for death.
A few of her friends, including her
erstwhile partner, Christa, gathered for Bridge and lunch to remember
and honour her, at the home of Maeve Mitchell recently.
Janina was a great upholder of all the
Bridge etiquette rules and one dare not put ones hand on the cards at
the wrong moment or become confused about "dealing" or
"making" the cards.
The memory of the lash of her tongue or
the smack of her hand lives on.
The system she played was, on occasions,
somewhat difficult to understand.
Cutthroat and giving no quarter.
If she was playing the hand, her very
ambitious bids usually worked out but if a timid or hapless partner
was left to make "Three No Trumps" (her favourite bid) with
a support hand of two points it was not always so successful.
After a miserable "three down,
doubled" Janina always had some advice as to mistakes in leading
or playing to which there was usually no reply.
Her knowledge of the cards and her recall
of the play sequence were faultless.
Jane was in that wonderful class of
intrepid settlers, always busy, and with a sharp and articulate mind,
despite the frustrating inadequacies of an aging body.
She is someone who will never be
forgotten.
As her Bridge friends raised their glasses
to her memory it was felt that she is probably now running the Bridge
Club in the sky, tapping the angels' wrists when they get the
"dealing" wrong.
-
Marlene Reid,
Mombasa.
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