Old Tom Sweby, so he got beaten up by Oswald Mosley’s henchmen did he? One of the reds in Beds. went down against the black shirts then? Having spent what must be hundreds of hours documenting his column and correcting his frequent mistakes already-I can’t say I will be losing any sleep over that! 🙂
Side note I have spoken to one of his former pupils, a subject of his reportage countless times over, a noted author who knew him, and also reflected upon the comments & messages from a county player who was both his and my team mate many, many, many times over, as well as reflected upon how he presented himself to me in my youth: the consensus being without doubt Tom went after them, or if you like, threw the first punch!
What the reportage says the thing is with old Tom, you can never be sure if he’s correct or not as it is sometimes not the case. The reportage below does indeed show that there was trouble but it suggests he may have been a victim rather than a perpetrator. We may also concede that since Tom reported it himself, that suggests he probably didn’t cause the trouble in the first place because if he had, he’d be much less likely to tell anyone especially when he got beaten up for doing it!
McCready’s last words despite his honorable intentions and ever-lasting attempts to generate interest in chess locally, Tom was not exactly a well-rounded person and had a tendency to be forthright and shoot his mouth off when he saw fit -as I myself witnessed. There is clearly a hidden agenda in play here also as he was a known communist thus opposed to facism as a result of his own views. Many have seen him become vociferous when he didn’t like something (myself included), he even brought Luton chess club to a grinding halt one evening with some overblown tirade just because its members weren’t giving him enough stories to report on -I should know, I was a member of the club then! Given that history does have a tendency to repeat itself, in all probability, given the nature of his reported position when Mosley rolled into town, he went and shot his mouth off to the wrong people and got done over!
Poor old Tom, did he not know learning to control your emotions is advantageous?
Mark. J. McCready
McCreadyandChess 
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