History can teach us a great deal if we are willing to pay attention and take note. In this post we shall see how our Bedfordshire predecessors had a broader understanding of what an evening of board games should entail than one based on just turning up and playing chess, which has long since become the accepted norm.
In a previous post this week, (https://mccreadyandchess.wordpress.com/2024/05/02/w-ward-plays-for-luton/) I showed how the industrial revolution to some degree shaped chess in Bedfordshire since matches between towns and cities connected by the newly developed national rail service became prominent and were more frequently reported on. We saw how Luton challenged Watford to a match held in St. Albans, a city reachable by train from both Luton and Watford, what with the train being a preferable option over horse and cart. Luton and Bedford also played each other with regularity, being connected by train since the 1860s.
I have uncovered reportage which suggests our board game lovers from the past had a better time of things than what we do in modern times or at least a more wholesome experience. It should be noted that both clubs were classified as Liberal clubs but this should not be mistaken for political persuasion amongst of county fellows. Instead it most likely indicates that superior venues with better facilities were chosen over, say draughty church halls by we chess players wanting a game somewhere. In Bedfordshire during the 20th century there was a shift away from clubs with political affiliations towards working men’s clubs. And although working men’s clubs tended to signify a membership of employees from the designated company, that did not hold true for all members, and similarly, membership at clubs supporting political parties did not necessarily denote political persuasion but rather a liking for clubs with better facilities, frequented by friends and family most likely.
The reportage comes from The Bedford Record and is, of course, pre WW1 -something poet Philip Larkin has something to say about. A games night of billiards—-draughts—-chess. That’s got to be better than turning up just to play chess, surely? If not better than more wholesome. Just imagine it, a few pints as well, conversation and conviviality by the bar too, more games, more fun – a real night of it!
But what do we do if it dawns on us that they knew better in a bygone era? What then? Alternatively you could tell me to shut up!
MCMXIV by Philip Larkin (1964)
Those long uneven lines
Standing as patiently
As if they were stretched outside
The Oval or Villa Park,
The crowns of hats, the sun
On moustached archaic faces
Grinning as if it were all
An August Bank Holiday lark;
And the shut shops, the bleached
Established names on the sunblinds,
The farthings and sovereigns,
And dark-clothed children at play
Called after kings and queens,
The tin advertisements
For cocoa and twist, and the pubs
Wide open all day;
And the countryside not caring:
The place-names all hazed over
With flowering grasses, and fields
Shadowing Domesday lines
Under wheat’s restless silence;
The differently-dressed servants
With tiny rooms in huge houses,
The dust behind limousines;
Never such innocence,
Never before or since,
As changed itself to past
Without a word – the men
Leaving the gardens tidy,
The thousands of marriages,
Lasting a little while longer:
Never such innocence again.
McCreadyandChess 
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