Posted in Quaint Chess History on July 5, 2016| Leave a Comment »
According to D. J. Richards in his noted text ‘Soviet Chess’ (1965), whose presented mode of history would not stand up in our post-modern world, there are two things we can jot down regarding Soviet chess history in the early 50s but don’t ask me which is more surprising: more than ‘100,000’ ‘from the countryside’ competing actively or that chess was not part of the national curriculum in schools (up to time of publication of course).
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Posted in History of Bedfordshire Chess on July 5, 2016| Leave a Comment »
I think we can all agree that at 81 years old Mr. Meises should have been proud of himself over his accomplishment. Note that amongst those who drew was the future Headmaster of Bedford Modern Junior School T. I. (Idris) Hussey.
Jacques Meises
A side note on how to read old Tom Sweby's columns
Not perhaps, but quintessentially, Old Tom Sweby is best thought of as a passionate devotee to the newspapers he wrote for. He was well read and knowledgeable of the Bedfordshire chess scene and well beyond, given that he was the president of the S.C.C.U. once upon a time. He was generally well-respected and rubbed shoulders with many, if not all, of those eminent within British chess circles. It would, however, be a critical mistake to see his column is primary source material entirely. That it is not. You will also find secondary source material quoted too, and the reliability of that is not quite as Tom hoped. Given that he wrote for decades, this is to some degree inevitable, and after all we are all prone to error whether we realize it or not. Thankfully, with regards to old Tom Sweby, they are infrequent and for the most part old Tom continued to document events and developments in the Bedfordshire league from the get go as best he could but, of course, everything lies open to interpretation. Despite this, and generally speaking. this does indeed make him informative and thus worth reading. Dare I say his columns constitute a narrative describing the latest developments, match reports and changing nature of the Beds league...he knew his audience and wrote according. This manifested itself over decades but brevity was always in play courtesy of the restictions imposed by writing a column. Should you wish to read a in instrumental figure of the Beds' league post WW2, you are quite welcome to peruse what has been posted here... . :-) I should, however, point out that as the decades wore on he gradually moved on away from narratives concerning the Bedfordshire league towards affairs both historical and international. The reasons for this are multifarous, old age was a predominante factor presumably, however, the bottom line is with regards to how the Bedfordshire chess scene developed post WW2: old Tom Sweby is your go to guy. He wrote more about chess in Bedforshire than anyone else did but given he was a Lutonian and writing for a Luton newspaper there is both bias and greater coverage of his hometown than the rest of the county.
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McCreadyandChess 