Posted in Bedfordshire Chess, Quaint Chess History on April 19, 2016| Leave a Comment »
The altruistic John Saunders has delighted the members of the English Chess Forum once more with his efforts, supplying the 1961 rating list, which can be found here: http://www.saund.co.uk/rgs/pdfs/viewer.html?file=1961gradinglist.pdf
My former county teammates should note that several Bedfordshire players can be found in it, including Mr.Cordon from Bedford.
Posted in Bedfordshire Chess on February 27, 2016| Leave a Comment »
At what point did the balance of power in our county shift from the south, where it certainly stood until the 40s, to the north? Was there really a defining moment or was it just a gradual transition? To what extent was the shift generational? Who came in and who left Bedfordshire during that time? We certainly know that former Kent champion L. Pape (of Italian origin) bolstered the north, and it’s possible that the eastern European community of -many- refugees that Bedford acquired after WW2 also contributed, but if so how much so? According to Sweby the Bedfordshire League began in 45 when Vauxhall won the title first followed by Luton Chess Club for the next 14 years. How was it, then, that in county matches the south figured so poorly?
In the following cutting we learn that the south, headed by stalwart R. H. Rushton (see https://mccreadyandchess.com/2015/07/23/the-changing-face-of-chess/ for image) lost heavily to the north once more. I’m assuming that M. Staddon is either Nigel’s father or he himself (that being a misprint of course). His opponent V. Maluga (of Ukraine) I once played in my teens. I always remember he complained over the slowness of my play after he lost on the black side of a Ruy Lopez rather than the yellow jumper I wore.
Posted in Bedfordshire Chess on December 11, 2015| Leave a Comment »
I grow warm, I begin to feel happy. There is nothing extraordinary in this, it is a small happiness of Nausea: it spreads at the bottom of the viscous puddle, at the bottom of out time – the time of purple suspenders, and broken chair seats; it is made of white, soft instants, spreading at the edge, like an oil stain. No sooner than born, it is already old, it seems as though I have known it for twenty years.
Jean Paul Satre, Nausea
Kents Athletic Club, Luton’s sole surviving chess hub is to close after nearly 40 years. It’s a typical story in modern day England; with a back drop of cultural decline, rising costs and dwindling numbers make the venue no longer financially viable. It is to be bulldozed, then someone will plonk a block of apartments on it most probably. This means that Luton, a town of over 200,000, will no longer have a chess club when the new year begins. Thankfully yours truly, though thousands of miles away, is not going to allow that.
The critical state of the chess club itself -almost bankrupt and without enough members to make ONE team, if you can believe that – has meant that the club and its demoralized members are struggling to find a new venue. Chess teaches us that risks should always be taken from a position of strength and not weakness, and so uprooting in such a desperate position could spell the end. But there are times when it is necessary to act quickly and confidently; it took me just three hours to find a solution and a new home for the club, much to the delight of the club secretary. The second phase is to readvertise and start promoting chess locally to attract members lost due to the poor playing conditions of recent years -that’s the easy part. We once had access to the ballroom at Kents, then we were pushed into the lounge, then into a tiny room at the back of an extension, much to the disgust of every visiting team. It is they more than anyone who will welcome the change of venue.
I might even fly in for the handover as the logistics of moving to a new venue are frightfully complicated, as the predicted conversation below suggests.
J =John (former friend)
M = Me
M ‘Easy geezer.’
J ‘Alright Mark, you alright?’
M ‘Yeah, alright mate yeah…er ya got those keys for that room then?’
J ‘Nah, never lock it mate, just go in yeah.’
M ‘Ah cheers.’
J ‘No worries mate…oh, er what dya’ wannit for again?’
M ‘Just some chess innit, we won’t wreck the joint, don’t worry.’
J ‘Ya better not, just off for a quick slash yeah, let us know if ya need anyfink.’
M ‘Yeah cheers.’
Let us hope that the new year brings revival for Luton Chess Club, it certainly needs it.
Where shall I keep mine? You don’t put your past in your pocket; you have to have a house. I have only my body: a man entirely alone, with his lonely body, cannot indulge in memories; they pass through him. I shouldn’t complain: all I wanted was to be free.
Jean Paul Satre, Nausea
Posted in Bedfordshire Chess, Personal Interest & Experience on October 30, 2015| Leave a Comment »
When you are away from home for so long, you begin to wonder what happened to those you once knew, so I was saddened to learn that my first playing partner at Luton Chess Club, Peter Whone has long since left us.
Peter was always well-dressed, not easy for a man of his enormous size. He was impeccably mannered and happy to play anyone new to the club though in truth he was too good for newcomers. Through allotments, he was a self-made millionaire and lived a life of leisure in his fifties although you would never have known as he was a shy, self-effacing man, a gentle giant in fact. In retrospect I am quite indebted to him and the kindness he showed when both myself and school playing partner Ashok Bhundia turned up as nervous schoolboys at the Luton Chess Club in Biscot Mill just after half-term in 87.
To begin we would only play each other whilst making up nicknames for the various club members we saw. Peter’s was Tefal, on account of his large forehead.
When we became bored of that, we would watch Peter with his usual playing partners, Richard and Margret. Peter was tactically-minded and played quickly, rarely taking more than a few seconds per move, often moving instantaneously. He only ever played 1. e4 and only ever expected 1. e5 in reply, anything else would draw a suspicious stare and a mumbled, but light-hearted, accusation of ‘that’s cheating’ or ‘he’s playing tricks’. He liked to commentate on games and would often accuse someone of being ‘nasty’ or would sometimes tell himself ‘I’ve made a boo-boo’. He never studied chess theory and gained great pleasure from skittles only. When he played for a team he never altered his style and would play lightening fast, using barely five minutes of his allotted time however ample that may be, often forgetting to write his moves down.
Without his kindness and patience I would not have been able to measure my progress as a junior as when my school friend stopped attending, I continued to visit the club, even though every game in every week came with defeat after defeat, finally however, after six weeks of trying, I gained my first win against Peter. Twenty eight years have since passed, so I cannot remember our casual game in its entirety but I do remember his friend Richard looking on in interest, smiling to himself as my white pieces did battle with Peter’s black army in a semi open game which had stemmed from a two knight’s defence to my Giuoco Piano. Peter tried a tactical ruse but had overlooked the vulnerability of his back rank, and after an exchange I played a winning intermezzo -Rd8- and claimed my first win against a recognized club player. He sat back in his chair in his characteristic way after he’d lost a game before congratulating me on my victory being the gentleman that he was. By this time my love of chess had turned me into a rebel at school: through antipathy, I had managed to drop out of all subjects -sometimes not through choice- and began reading chess literature voraciously whilst loitering in empty corridors or on empty playgrounds. Now known as a lost cause amongst teachers, I would never attend lessons, opting to bunk off and swot up on the latest openings instead, and even when I did attend I would never write or read anything but always had six or more chess books from the local library in my bag at the ready, hoping that some inattentive Science teacher wouldn’t see me slip one out and place it under my exercise book, having begun the current chapter on the bus home from school the day before. I was, in fact, offering a valid critique of the education system, and having suddenly gone from being yet another underachieving face in the crowd to school champion, thus I was left alone to educate myself… .
Peter’s finest hour?
One of Peter’s greatest ever victories over the board came in my first full season, playing for Luton ‘C’ team. On the 25th of October 1988 we drove to Linslade to play Leighton Buzzard, where for the first time I met the irrepressible Henry ‘Bill’ Charlotte, the pipe smoking septuagenarian that ‘anyone could lose to’ according to former team mate Gary Ames. Peter, rated only 89 at the time, was our top board, our main man and played Kevin Williamson rated 142 at the time. Because he played so fast, Peter had an uncanny ability to unsettle his opponent and often dupe them into keeping up with him. This was always a critical mistake and meant certain defeat to those who tried. Peter had the white pieces and, from memory, Kevin played the Pirc/Modern defence but fell for a nasty trap around the 25 move mark. After the game I distinctly remember telling Peter his opponent’s rating and the look of disbelief in his face – in fact he never forgot that game and had a great season, putting 30 points on his rating.
Peter shows his busy hands
One chess evening just before Christmas, a group of players, myself included, were invited to Peter’s house for an evening of chess and snooker. The journey was memorable since Peter usually bought Vauxhall cars built in Luton but had recently chose to buy a metallic blue E-reg, Ford Sierra much to the horror of us Lutonians. Instead of the back lanes, he chose to turn off the motorway at the first exit but it was a cold night, the street lamps shone through frosted air…perhaps that was the safer route to his house in Redbourne, a forgotten Hertfordshire village just outside Harpenden. Inside his huge bungalow was a full-sized snooker table and a chess board placed on a small table by an armchair. Snooker was his other love, and he would often draw comparisons describing both chess and snooker as being ‘cruel’ games, referring to the fact that mistakes weren’t easily rectified in either. I remember how ashamed he was at the mess he’d left on the armchair as he’d not intended to invite anyone back before he left, ‘Look at that mess’, he repeated, referring to an item of clothing placed upon a folded newspaper, aside which his house was spotless and quite unlike that typically associated with an aging bachelor…an evening of wine, chess and snooker followed. A brief description of his house can be found here:
https://www.thegazette.co.uk/notice/L-58510-388409
On what can be learnt…
The thing that Peter taught me more than anything else was the importance of welcoming juniors with open arms to your chess club. By nature they are, like I once was, timid souls, who respond to kindness and patience above all. Peter had a great ability to treat everyone on the same level, irrespective of their age and playing level. In retrospect he was the ideal first playing partner as he exemplified a love of chess and people and was impossible not to warm to. Everyone played him and everyone lost to him if they tried to play at his speed. He never took anything seriously and could shrug off defeat better than any player I ever met. It is a great shame that he is no longer with us, he was a true gentleman and is not forgotten.
R.I.P Peter Hartley Whone
Posted in Bedfordshire Chess, Quaint Chess History on October 27, 2015| Leave a Comment »
Victorian times in the home counties -a gentleman cycles across rural Bedfordshire to participate in a chess match but ends up in prison -how quaint?
The gentleman’s destination.
Posted in Bedfordshire Chess, Quaint Chess History, tagged G.H.Diggle chess on September 30, 2015| Leave a Comment »
Courtesy of Glynn’s Bookstore http://www.biblio.com/bookstore/glynns-books-norwich , G.H. Diggle’s Reminiscences of a Badmaster Vol I & II arrived via airmail last week. (Badmaster was a title awarded to Diggle by C.H.O’D. Alexander in a Christmas Card after Diggle lost a game in 7 moves). You can find more on O’ Donel Alexander here https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conel_Hugh_O%27Donel_Alexander
I began reading it whilst keeping an eye on my daughter as she played in a nearby Kidzoona, yet another example of Japanese ingenuity, but had to stop reading pronto as I attracted far too many concerned stares from other waiting parents who perhaps wondered if I were a bit mad -I could not contain the ensuing paroxysms of hilarity!
Diggle writes satire with an abundance of both pause and panache, the likes of which I have never encountered before. He is immeasurably entertaining and has a style that is unmistakably his. Though he was not the strongest chess player of his time, I strongly suspect he is by far the most gifted writer ever to have graced the chess board in its long, long history.
Those from my home county Bedfordshire may wish to take note that Diggle once played for Bedfordshire (scroll down to 7223. for evidence http://www.chesshistory.com/winter/winter85.html ) and was acquainted with our leagues senior figures of the post-war period. Here’s an excerpt from the BM (Badmaster)
12. The BM’s finest hour
The Badmaster always regards the year 1945 as ‘his finest hour’. The war was just over -no one had been demobbed or seemed to be doing any work – plenty of chess was going on in London, and best of all there was no ‘grading’ and ‘grandmaster’ nonsense in those days, and chess impostors like the BM could put their name down for any tournament they liked. A huge ‘mixed bag’ of 128 players entered for the London championship; these were reduced by four ‘knockout’ rounds to eight; three well-known ‘seeded’ players were added, and the resulting eleven then played ‘American’ in the final. Believe it or not, the BM (through the vagaries of the draw) survived to be in the last eight; and for a glorious ten days he was in the news, competing with people like Sir George Thomas, Dr. Aitken, Dr. List, G.Wood and other experts.
The tournament was won by G.Wood (though not everyone had backed him to do so); the Badmaster came bottom of the poll (and here every forecast was right). But, as the argumentative boy in the scripture class pointed out in defence of ‘he that is least in the kingdom of heaven’ – ‘ANYHOW, HE GOT THERE!’ Moreover, to this day, the BM refuses to attribute the result to the superiority of his opponents, he lays the blame fairly and squarely, on harassment by the chess press, who frightened him out of his wits. Every round, they adopted the following horrible procedure. Headed by the bearded bohemian William Winter, they came nosing round after the first half-dozen moves to see what was cooking. Like those ungodly persecutors in the 59th psalm they ‘wandered up and down for meat.’ Then the great Winter, after glancing for an awful moment over the petrified BM’s shoulder, would instantly recoil with a hissing intake of the breathe, scribble some doomridden fragment in his notebook, and pass on to the next victim. Then the whole pack would troop off to a neighbouring bar. After they’d gone, the BM would recover his nerve and make some brilliant combination which only just lost, and which the Press ought to have been there to report to the World. But as soon as his game was in the last throws they would all come back. ‘And at evening’, to quote the psalmist once more ‘they will return, grin like a dog, and run about the city’. The experienced Winter always gazed at the ruin of the BM’s position with a lacklustre but logically satisfied eye, reminding one of Lear’s favourite limerick:-
‘There was once an old man with a beard
Who said ‘It is just as I feared!’
Diggle is to the right and at the front.
Posted in Bedfordshire Chess on September 2, 2015| Leave a Comment »
The Midland Hotel, which became synonymous with chess in Luton during the interwar years and beyond when the colorful character J.E.D. Moysey became the owner, was a home to chess in the town as early as 1910. A match against Northampton was played there with F.Dickens representing Luton on the top board. Local players may observe that C.Staddon, uncle of Nigel Staddon (formerly of Luton, now of Bedford) can be found on the team sheet.
Posted in Bedfordshire Chess, tagged ledger brothers on June 24, 2015| Leave a Comment »
Peter Frost, an Australian friend from Bangkok recently entered the Teplice tournament in the Czech Republic and bumped into Bedfordshire’s finest, the Ledger brothers. If that wasn’t enough of a coincidence, Peter was paired with white against Steve Ledger in the second round. Here is their game.
Not the best shirt even seen at the chess board Steve.
From left to right, Dave Ledger, Peter Frost, Steve Ledger and Andrew Ledger.
| M | T | W | T | F | S | S |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 2 | 3 | ||||
| 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 |
| 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 |
| 18 | 19 | 20 | 21 | 22 | 23 | 24 |
| 25 | 26 | 27 | 28 | 29 | 30 | 31 |
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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