“MY NAME is Kate Arkless Gray, and I'm a Scrabble addict.” OK, I admit it, I'm one of the 750,000 people who are lured to Facebook everyday for a quick game of Scrabble.

In fact, I have six games going at the moment. Scrabble is experiencing a resurgence, with a new generation of players getting hooked online.

It was my grandmother who introduced me to Scrabble, but as the youngest in the family I constantly suffered humiliating defeats at the hands of my older cousin and my human- thesaurus granny.

We played on a special board that belonged to her blind father, and I was so desperate for victory that I even considered learning Braille to help my “luck” when choosing letters. Times have changed since then, but despite my increased years (and vocabulary), Granny still holds the family Scrabble crown.

I was actually feeding my new-found Scrabble addiction online when I spied the advert for a week-long Scrabble holiday in the Lake District and I was intrigued by the concept. The words “Scrabble” and “holiday” don't make a natural pairing, but Rothay Manor took a gamble on the craze for the game and added Scrabble to its list of more commonplace activity holidays, such as painting and gardening.

Seduced by the idea of “tactics tutorials”, I headed up to Windermere, to meet fellow Scrabble fanatics and find out what had brought them there.

I wasn't sure what to expect, but on arrival I was struck by two things. First, in a group of 16 people, there were only two men, and, second, the range of ages - 24-84 - surprised me. The idea of a Scrabble holiday had conjured up images of obsessive word geeks and lonely pensioners, but, in fact, it was a diverse bunch.

My first game was against Jan, a Scrabble fiend who took no prisoners and beat me by an embarrassing margin. Of course, I blamed it on my bad letters, but I don't think I can deny her superior skill. As we played, Jan confided that a stroke 11 years ago left her almost totally paralysed.

She has since recovered, but is still unable to go on the walking holidays she used to enjoy, and thought that this might be a good alternative.

Over coffee I talked to 84-year-old Annette and discovered that she worked at Bletchley Park during the war. She helped to defeat the might of the German Army with her considerable word-skills, so I was not about to challenge her to a game.

At the younger end of the scale was Monica, a mere 24, and her friend Jenny, who announced at the end of the week that she intends to be the world's first female Scrabble champion. “Haven't you heard that it's cool to be a geek these days?”

Each day we were taught something new, with lessons that included “the power of two and three-letter words” and “exploiting bonus squares”.

Experienced players were also a valuable source of tips and tricks. I'm looking forward to using my new favourite word, “aidoi”, to get rid of the plague of “i's that I seem to pick up. Nobody seems to know what it means, but I'm assured that “as long as it is in the official Scrabble dictionary and it scores a lot of points, meaning is irrelevant”.

Halfway through my stay I challenged the course organiser, Kathy Rush, to a game. She took pity on me, and talked me through my best options for each turn, enabling me to scrape a win. I learnt that there is a big difference between tournament and domestic Scrabble.

Granny certainly wouldn't allow some of the words listed in the Scrabble Dictionary and one woman told me that her son, an English teacher, refuses to play her unless they stick to using the Oxford English Dictionary. I can see his point - since when has “za” been a word? (It's slang for pizza in case you were wondering.)

The week wasn't just about Scrabble however. There was plenty of time in the afternoons to explore the lakes or go for a spot of pampering at the local spa. It was quite remarkable that a group of strangers, with nothing more than a board game in common, bonded so well, as people young and old swapped tiles and tales.

My finest moment came when I managed to start the final match of the holiday with a seven-letter word gaining a bonus 50 points for using all my letters. Moments later I realised that my new selection revealed another chance to place all my tiles and with dilates and truncations I was more than 100 points up on my opponent in just two goes.

Victory was mine and I left the Lake District feeling strangely uplifted by the experience and eager to try my new Scrabble skills against my old rivals. Watch out, Granny!

NEED TO KNOW

Scrabble weekends at Rothay Manor, Ambleside, Cumbria, cost £435 per person

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