Victory Wooden Puzzles celebrates its first anniversary this year – but fans will know that its history goes back much further.

Andrew Knowles, former CEO of Dorset arts and crafts business Design Objectives Ltd, is looking to continue the legacy of one Gerald Hayter as ‘refounder’ of the beloved local brand.

Victory began life in Gerald’s garden shed, where he used to hand-cut wooden puzzles with a fretsaw.

He soon outgrew the home setup and moved to a small, rented workshop on Oxford Road, Bournemouth – and then to a dedicated factory on Palmerston Road, Boscombe. It was there that production peaked in the 1950s with more than 100 staff on the payroll.

But subsequent decades saw wooden puzzles swapped for cheaper cardboard alternatives, and by the late 1980s, the brand was no more.

Fast forward to the 2020 lockdowns and Andrew found himself, like so many others, puzzling to pass the time.

Before long the hobby had blossomed into a business, and it just so happened that Andrew’s son Aidan had recently completed his thesis at California College of the Arts on artistically cut wooden puzzles.

Little did they know at the time that someone had already beaten them to the punch – 100 years prior.

“We’d been keen to launch a wooden jigsaw company for some time”, said Andrew.

“We were scratching our heads trying to come up with a brand name. ‘How about Victory?’ – that’s a strong, nostalgic English word, I thought.

“A quick Google search to see if it already existed led to our discovery.”

Gerald, it turned out, had settled on the name shortly after the First World War.

“But the story almost ended in the 1980s when G.J Hayter & Co. stopped producing Victory puzzles”, Andrew added.

“If it wasn’t for the quality of the puzzles and keen collectors on eBay, the brand would almost certainly have disappeared completely.

“And so, with friends James and Toby Martin, it’s been our honour and privilege to re-establish this historic 100-year-old brand.”

James and Toby are shareholders at Victory. They handle distribution through their own business, Mauveworx, just 10 miles away from the site of the original Boscombe factory.

Over the past year, the team have been drawing in customers young and old with a whole new range of puzzles, cut from sustainably sourced 5mm Linden plywood.

Andrew has even adopted the iconic ‘V for Victory’ as the brand’s signature piece, featuring in each and every design.

“If looked after correctly, our puzzles will be around for generations to come”, he added. “They truly are heirloom quality.

“Our desire is to re-invigorate the Victory brand to a point where it will, once again, bring joy and put smiles on faces of millions more puzzle enthusiasts in the 21st century and beyond – something that would undoubtedly have brought a smile to Gerald’s face too.”

• victorypuzzles.com

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