Filling people’s time beautifully since 1976

PWA is a family-run British puzzle publishing house with a simple mission: to fill people’s time beautifully.

Not loudly. Not frantically. Not with another screen, another scroll, another thing shouting for attention.

Beautifully.

With a word found in a grid.
A clue that suddenly clicks.
A quiet half-hour at the kitchen table.
A magazine tucked into a holiday bag, a hospital bag, a handbag, a glovebox, a bedside drawer.
A small square of calm in the middle of ordinary life.

Since 1976, our family has been making wordsearches, criss crosses, bumper puzzle magazines and children’s puzzle books for people who love the simple, deeply satisfying pleasure of solving.

We believe puzzles are not throwaway things.

They are small acts of focus.
Tiny victories.
A way of coming back to yourself for five minutes.
A reason to put the kettle on.
A companion on a train, in a waiting room, on a beach, or in that sacred British institution: the Sunday afternoon chair.

A cozy corner with a mustard yellow armchair draped with a blue blanket, a rustic wooden side table with a potted plant, and a coffee table with an open newspaper, a cup of tea, and small bowls, against a textured blue wall.

A family story

PWA has always been a family business.

The kind built not in boardrooms, but around kitchen tables, late nights, stacks of paper, printer deadlines, cover proofs, circulation figures, strong opinions and someone inevitably saying, “Right, but would you actually pick it up in WHSmith?”

For nearly 50 years, our puzzles have travelled through newsagents, supermarkets, suitcases, care homes, caravans, cafés, classrooms and quiet corners of homes across the UK and beyond.

And now, a new generation of the family is carrying it forward — honouring what was built, while gently reimagining what PWA can become for the next 50 years.

Because legacy is not about keeping everything the same.

Legacy is about knowing what matters enough to protect it.

For us, that means clear grids. Fair prices. Proper puzzles. Beautiful covers. Good ethical paper. A sense of care. A sense of value. A sense that someone, somewhere, has thought about the person who will sit down and solve this.

A woman with dark, curly hair leaning over a young man with straight hair, both smiling, surrounded by papers, books, and crossword puzzles in a room with wood-paneled walls.
Seven people standing outdoors holding magazines titled 'Big WordSearch Special', with a lush background of trees and a sunset sky.
Three children standing outdoors holding puzzles with the title 'Junior Puzzling Fun' on the covers.

Meet the Family Team

  • A middle-aged man with gray hair, wearing glasses and a blue button-up shirt, smiling softly in front of a beige background with sunlight shadows.

    Terence Allen

    FOUNDER & CEO

    Terence founded PWA nearly 50 years ago and built it from the ground up into a much-loved British puzzle publishing business.

    With deep industry knowledge, a sharp instinct for what readers want, and the kind of entrepreneurial stamina you only get from actually building something yourself, he laid the foundations for everything PWA is today.

    His vision, consistency and care continue to shape the business — as a living family legacy.

    At heart, Terence is the rare sort of founder who built something useful, honest and enduring — not by chasing noise, but by understanding, quietly and brilliantly, what people come back to.

  • A woman with short blonde hair in a beige blazer and white shirt looking thoughtfully to the side, with sunlight casting geometric shadows on the wall behind her.

    Molly Allen

    MANAGING DIRECTOR

    Molly brings strategic clarity, brand expertise and commercial momentum to PWA as it enters its next chapter.

    With nearly 20 years’ experience in London brand, marketing and business development, she has worked across strategy, identity, storytelling, positioning, client growth and creative direction — helping businesses understand not just what they sell, but why people should care.

    At PWA, Molly is focused on strengthening the brand, refining the portfolio, improving cover strategy, building new routes to market and honouring the 50-year legacy while making the business fit for the future.

    She believes PWA’s work is simple, but not small: to fill people’s time beautifully.

  • A woman with long brown hair and blue eyes wearing a blue dress, smiling in front of a beige background with shadows.

    Kitty Allen

    FINANCE DIRECTOR

    Kitty brings financial intelligence, calm judgement and strategic rigour to PWA.

    With eight years at PwC and thirteen years at Swiss Re, she has built a career around precision, oversight, risk, discipline and long-term thinking — exactly the kind of steady hand a family business needs as it grows into its next era.

    At PWA, Kitty helps ensure the business is not only creative and ambitious, but financially robust, thoughtfully run and built to last.

  • A man with a beard is wearing orange-tinted sunglasses and a blue collared shirt, standing against a gold and beige background.

    Tom Allen

    CREATIVE DIRECTOR

    Tom brings a distinctive creative eye to PWA, shaped by a background in high-end design for luxury venues, prestigious events and high-profile clients.

    After ten years honing his craft in Berlin, his approach combines bold visual thinking, contemporary European influence, meticulous detail and a strong instinct for what makes something feel elevated.

    At PWA, Tom helps shape the creative direction of the brand — bringing taste, clarity and a fresh design perspective to a category that is ready to feel more beautiful, more confident and more alive.

  • A middle-aged woman with wavy gray hair, smiling, wearing a brown button-up shirt, standing in front of a plain wall with shadow patterns.

    Annie Allen

    EDITOR

    Annie is the editorial heart of PWA.

    As Editor, she oversees the themes, word lists and carefully chosen details that give our puzzles their character, rhythm and charm. With a lifelong love of books, language and the written word, she brings warmth, intelligence and instinct to the pages our readers return to issue after issue.

    An avid reader and the matriarch of the family, Annie has a quiet but powerful influence on PWA — shaping not only what goes into the magazines, but the spirit in which they are made.

    Her work helps ensure our puzzles feel thoughtful, varied and human: full of words worth finding, themes worth enjoying, and the kind of care that turns a simple grid into a little pocket of pleasure.

  • A young boy with light skin, brown hair, and blue eyes wearing a blue t-shirt stands in front of a beige wall with shadows cast on it.

    Rafe Allen

    CHILDRENS’S EDITOR

    Rafe is PWA’s youngest editor and our in-house expert on what children actually find fun.

    With a brilliant love of numbers, puzzles, patterns and noticing the tiny details adults often miss, Rafe brings an important perspective to our children’s range: the child’s-eye view.

    As Children’s Editor, he helps remind us that children’s puzzles should never feel like homework in disguise. They should feel curious, playful, satisfying and just the right amount of tricky.

    Rafe’s job is to keep us honest: Are the puzzles fun? Are they clear? Would a child want to do one more page? And, most importantly, is there enough joy in it?

    His instinct helps shape our family puzzle books so they are not only educational, but properly enjoyable — the kind of screen-free fun children can get lost in.

  • A woman with long, wavy brown hair smiling, wearing an orange-brown satin blouse, standing against a beige background with sunlight creating diagonal shadow lines.

    Lucy Allen

    READER CLUB & SOCIAL EDITOR

    Lucy brings style, warmth and a rare instinct for connection to PWA.

    With a background as a top make-up artist, she has a beautifully trained eye for detail, presentation and the subtle things that make people feel seen, welcomed and uplifted.

    At PWA, Lucy helps shape our reader community, social channels and Puzzle Club — sharing new issues, puzzle treats, behind-the-scenes moments and the everyday joy of solving.

    Her role is about connection: helping PWA feel not just like a puzzle publisher, but like a warm, generous little world readers are happy to belong to.

Our promise

We make puzzles with care.

Clear enough to enjoy.
Varied enough to return to.
Affordable enough to pick up often.

From big bumper wordsearches to criss cross collections and children’s puzzle books, every PWA title is made for real people, in real life, who want a satisfying little pocket of calm.

Because time is precious.

And if someone gives us half an hour of theirs, we want
to fill it beautifully.

Made in Whitstable,
Enjoyed Everywhere

PWA is made on the Kent coast, in a town of sea air, working harbour, weathered wood and proper independent spirit.

Whitstable reminds us to keep things human: well-made, useful, unshowy, and full of character.

Our puzzles begin here — shaped by a family business with deep roots and a long memory — before travelling out into the world.

A small publishing house by the sea.
A little bit of Whitstable in every issue.

Row of blue beach huts at sunset near the ocean, with a fence and sparse vegetation in the foreground.
A small wooden boat resting on a pebbled shoreline next to a blue wooden building, with a sailboat anchored in the water nearby and a partly cloudy sky overhead.
A cozy study room with a large wooden desk, a potted plant, stacks of books, papers, and writing tools. In the background is a bookshelf filled with old books, a framed landscape painting, and a window bringing natural light.
A desk with old books, handwritten notes, a crossword puzzle book, a pencil, a ceramic cup, a pair of reading glasses, and a vase with green foliage and berries.
Blue plaque on brick wall honoring Sir Stanley Unwin, publisher, born in 1884 and died in 1968, inscribed 'was born here', under Greater London Council.

The house with a publishing soul

There’s something rather wonderful about the fact that our family home once belonged to Sir Stanley Unwin — the legendary publisher connected with some of the great books and thinkers of the twentieth century, including The Lord of the Rings and Gandhi.

We don’t take that lightly.

There are houses that are just houses.

And then there are houses that seem to hold a kind of creative voltage in the walls. Places where books have been argued over, pages have been marked up, ideas have been protected, and words have mattered enormously.

That spirit feels stitched into PWA.

We may make puzzle magazines rather than epic fantasy trilogies, but we believe in the same essential thing: the printed page still matters.

It matters because people still reach for paper when they want to slow down.

It matters because print asks something different of us.

It says: sit here. Look closely. Take your time. You are allowed to be absorbed by this.

And in a world that is constantly trying to fracture our attention, that feels quietly radical.

A cozy vintage study setup featuring a wooden table with open books, handwritten notes, a pair of reading glasses, and a pen, with a mustard-yellow armchair beside it. In the background, a blue textured wall, a ceramic vase with dried branches, and a cup of coffee complete the scene.

Why puzzles?

Because puzzles are beautifully democratic.

You don’t need special equipment. You don’t need WiFi. You don’t need to be “good at puzzles” in some grand, intimidating way.

You just need a pen, a page, and a few minutes.

Puzzles meet people exactly where they are.

They can be easy, hard, comforting, challenging, nostalgic, absorbing, communal or gloriously solitary.

They can keep a child busy on a long journey.
They can give an older person a daily ritual.
They can help a tired adult switch off without switching on another device.
They can turn a waiting room into something bearable.
They can make a cup of tea feel like an event.

That is the quiet magic of what we do.

From our family
to yours.

For nearly 50 years, PWA has been built by real people, for real people.

People with pens in kitchen drawers. People on trains. People in waiting rooms. People having five quiet minutes with a cup of tea. People who still know that paper can be a small act of peace.

That is what we are here to protect.

Good puzzles. Fair value. Beautiful print. A little bit of calm in the middle of ordinary life.

Whether you’re a reader, retailer, distributor, printer, partner or someone who simply loves a good wordsearch, we’d love to hear from you.

Happy puzzling,


The PWA Family

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