MJC: Wartime Games from a POW Camp

Peter Berthoud
12 hours ago
2 min read

MJC Pepys wartime games collection including Horse Racing To-night, Horsie Horsie, Five-A-Side and Home Cricket) — All the MJC games published by Pepys, displayed together.

During the Second World War, a group of British Merchant Navy seamen held as POWs by the Germans created their own forms of entertainment to maintain morale. They established the Marine Jockey Commission (M.J.C.) and organised regular indoor horse-racing evenings. These events proved extremely popular, raising more than £3,000 for the British Red Cross, and offered a rare sense of normality amid the hardships of captivity.

After repatriation, the former prisoners transformed the games they had invented in the camp into commercial products. Pepys (Castell Brothers) published several titles, introducing the ingenuity and spirit developed in wartime captivity to British family homes in the late 1940s. Early editions included an explanatory booklet detailing the games’ origins (shown below).

Marine Jockey Commission M.J.C. original booklet cover Pepys games — The explanatory booklet included in early editions explaining the Marine Jockey Commission story.

Here are the three main MJC games that emerged from this remarkable WWII story:

1. Horse Racing To-night

“Six Events With All the Thrills of the Real Course”

A thrilling horse racing game with a large folding board, plastic horses, fences, dice and shakers. Early editions included an M.J.C. leaflet explaining its POW origins.

Horse Racing To-night large folding board used in German POW camp 1941 Marine Jockey Commission — The original Horse Racing To-night board as used by prisoners in Sandbostel Camp in 1941.

Above, the original version of Horse Racing Tonight as used in Sandbostel Camp in 1941and below the box of the commercial version of the same game, published by Pepys in 1946.

Horse Racing To-night Pepys MJC commercial box 1946 — The box of Pepys' commercial edition of Horse Racing To-night, published in 1946.

Horse Racing To-night Pepys MJC game board 1946 — The Pepys Horse Racing To-night game board.

2. Horsie Horsie

Available in Eight-Track and larger Twelve-Track versions. A bingo-style horse-racing game directly based on the popular race nights held in the German POW camp. This was available in two versions and 8 board version and a 12 board version, pictured below. Each player used a seperate board and there was also one player nominated as "the controller", so groups of 9 and 13 could play the respective versions.

Horsie Horsie Twelve-Track Pepys MJC game box and contents — The Twelve-Track edition of Horsie Horsie showing box and full contents.

3. Five-A-Side

“The NEW Soccer Game of SKILL”

A miniature table football game with Blue and Red Teams of 5 lead, or lead alloy, players each. The rarest of the MJC games.

Five-A-Side Pepys MJC table football game box art 1947 — Five-A-Side box lid featuring the original artwork.

Five-A-Side Pepys MJC game set up with red and blue teams ready to play — Five-A-Side set up and ready to play on the pitch.

4. Home Cricket

Stylistically Home Cricket is very similar to the other MJC games. I have never seen a copy with any mentions of MJC on the box or the rules but it is often attributed to them, so I've included the game here for the sake of completness. The game was available in a large boxed version and a compact “Portfolio” edition. Whether it was designed by MJC or not, it is a simple but clever dice-based cricket simulation.

Home Cricket Pepys MJC pictorial box lid showing a cricket match — Home Cricket pictorial box lid .

The Home Cricket game board by Pepys & MJC — The Home Cricket game board.

See the full text of the MJC brochure, links to all known game variations and many more photos on my specialist Pepys site here: Marine Jockey Commission (M.J.C.) & Pepys Games