Back in 1990, when Gavin Ucko was studying for his MA in Educational Psychology, he received an unusual gift from one of his lecturers that appeared to have very little to do with his career trajectory — a set of 3D puzzles known as “happy cubes”.

“Someone had given them to him as a gift and he wasn’t particularly interested — but he knew how much I loved puzzles,” recalls Ucko.

At that point, he already had a BA in Psychology and Modern Languages under his belt and was teaching sixth-formers at JFS part-time. Writing, inventing and solving puzzles had long been an all-consuming hobby, but it hadn’t yet moved beyond that.

Receiving the cubes from his lecturer became something of a defining moment . “I suddenly realised I had to find a way to combine my love of puzzles and my degrees,” Ucko says. “I had to go away and make something happen.”

That something turned out to be the launch of The Happy Puzzle Company (THPC) just a year later, starting life as an alternative kids’ birthday party solution, with parents hiring

Gavin to come and do educational puzzles and games with the children rather than booking the more standard clown or entertainer.

Chanukah wordsearch

Gavin's Chanukah wordsearch for the JC

Fast forward 30 years and Gavin is the father of four “actual” children ranging in age from 11 to 22 (he and wife Rachel are about to celebrate their silver wedding anniversary) and his fifth and oldest “child”, The Happy Puzzle Company, has reached well over a million children through its schools’ programme, has won 21 major toy and game awards, and even has its own TV show (more of that later).

The success of THPC probably wouldn’t surprise anyone who knew Gavin as a child though. A student at Habs Prep and Senior schools, he was, he claims, “impossible” to teach. “I was never badly behaved, but I was so loud and all over the place. These days I would have been diagnosed with ADHD and been given support in the classroom.”

Instead, with no extra help in place, Gavin’s creativity was given free rein at school — he started designing his own games while he was still in Juniors’, his interest sparked by an abiding love of Monopoly.

By the time he was ten, the school was reaping the benefits, with whole classrooms being turned over to him for puzzling during wet breaks; eventually he was running regular House Assemblies. In his final school report, his form master, with amazing foresight, wrote:

“Gavin’s ability to organise others to entertain themselves may yet turn out to be useful.”

It seems only natural that Gavin’s love of puzzles extended to TV game shows too —however, initially at least he was less successful here.

In a different school report his head of sixth form wrote: “Now that it appears Gavin is not going to appear on Blockbusters before his A Levels, perhaps he will give them his undivided attention.”

Undeterred, during his gap year with Bnei Akiva Ucko wrote a bucket list, topped by his desire to appear on a TV game show and to be a TV presenter. He may never have reached the dizzying heights of asking for a “‘P’ please” on primetime telly, but he has appeared on an impressive nine game shows to date.

One thing he never compromises on is wearing his kippah on air, which sparked a lively online debate during one appearance — had the studio Sellotaped something to his head or was it “that Jewish thing”, viewers wanted to know.

And during the filming of a different show for the BBC he caused continuity havoc by forgetting which kippah he’d worn for the first day of recording, resulting in every shot of the back of his head having to be edited out of the second day.

“I wouldn’t leave my house without my kippah so why should I hide who I am on air?” shrugs Ucko. “I’ve never had a single negative word said or experienced any antisemitism — on the contrary I get treated very well, they even ordered me in dinner from a kosher restaurant when I was filming one show in Manchester.”

In 2019 he finally got to tick off the other item on his bucket list, merging his love of TV and puzzles as the presenter of a monthly Happy Puzzle Company TV Show on the “Create and Craft” channel.

Not content with just presenting his puzzles and games on air, he didn’t rest until they let him do the continuity links to the next show as well, something he clearly relishes.

But as Gavin looks back at three decades of the company, it’s clear what he is most proud of.
“Our motto has always been ‘creating happiness one puzzle at a time’ and I think that’s what we’ve done,” he says.

“Nowadays communication is so reliant on screens and texts, families don’t have the same structures in place to spend time with each other — our puzzles and games aim to get families back together learning, playing and enjoying being together.”

This value really came into its own during the pandemic, when the company donated thousands of wipe-clean puzzles to the NHS and kitted out 50 care homes with games for people who were in isolation and unable to see their families.

More recently they sent 1,000 games to Ukraine and set up two toy libraries closer to home. Looking back to his own early difficulties in the classroom, Ucko is particularly proud of the fact that THPC specifically caters for children with neurodiversity such as ADHD, ASD, dyslexia and dyspraxia, by isolating the relevant therapeutic skills that are nurtured by specific games and recommending them to parents and educators.

Just a few months ago, THPC was bought out by Belgian toy giant Smart Games. Staying in post as CEO, Ucko intends to return to his first love of designing and inventing his own puzzles and games.

What really makes him smile though is the fact that as well as The Happy Puzzle Company, Smart Games also owns the Happy Cube, the 3D game gifted to him by his university lecturer so many years ago.

“It’s really come full circle now,” he smiles. And, in the prescient words of his form master, his ability to help others entertain themselves have certainly turned out to be useful.

Gavin Ucko has created a wordsearch puzzle, especially for JC readers. Can you find 18 Chanukah related words in the grid on the left? See the back page of today’s JC2 section for the solution.