Growing up in the 1950s and 1960s I struggled with many things: I wasn’t able to access physical sports and found it hard to make friends and communicate with other people.
My parents thought chess might be good for me, and, when I was 10, I received a pocket chess set for Christmas. My father, although he had no interest in the game himself, showed me the moves, and, the following September, I took my chess set with me on my first day at secondary school, hoping if would help me connect with other boys.
It worked, and chess soon became an obsession. When I was 14 or 15 my father took me to Richmond & Twickenham Chess Club, where I was encouraged to take part in competitive chess. I’m still a member now.
I completed my studies in 1972, when the Fischer-Spassky match made worldwide headlines. My parents’ friends asked me to teach their children, so I found myself involved in chess education. In 1975 my friend Mike Fox and I started Richmond Junior Chess Club, which soon became one of the world’s most successful chess clubs for children.
By 2000 I had become disillusioned with much of what was happening in children’s chess. It had become a learning tool for younger children rather than, as it was in my day, a hobby for older children. Chess was no longer for children like me.
I realised that chess had saved my life: without chess I would undoubtedly have had an unhappy and unproductive existence, and probably wouldn’t be here now. I was waiting for the tide to turn, and for chess to resume its rightful place as a game whose purpose was social rather than educational, a game mostly for older children and adults. Perhaps that time has now come.
Half a century on, it’s time for me to consider starting a new chess club for children.
In the words of TS Eliot (Little Gidding):
And the end of all our exploring
Will be to arrive where we started
And know the place for the first time.
CHESS MINDS 