Minor Pieces

Meet Adam Foster. Adam was born in Widnes, not far from Liverpool, on 30 October 1875. His father, also Adam, was originally from Middlesbrough, while his mother was Irish, from County Kildare. By 1891 the family had moved to Accrington, where young Adam had joined his father as a labourer in a charcoal works. At… Continue reading

Last time we looked at my friend Phil Poyser’s chess career. This time, I want to look at his family history and his career as an artist. I’ll show you some of his artwork as well, often showing local scenes which are very familiar to me. If you’re looking for chess you might want to… Continue reading

During the 1970s and 1980s Richmond & Twickenham Chess Club counted two artists amongst its most distinguished members. One of them was Jack Redon, whom you met here. Jack was a wealthy man, living in a large house in perhaps Twickenham’s most desirable road, for whom painting was an enjoyable hobby. Phil Poyser was very… Continue reading

Aleister Crowley’s co-star in the first pages of The Complete Chess Addict to be written, Harold Francis Davidson, was an almost exact contemporary. Davidson was just three months older, born near Southampton on 14 July 1875 (58 years and 14 days before Mike Fox, 75 years and 14 days before me). He came from a… Continue reading

Last time we left Aleister Crowley climbing mountains in Austria in September 1894, approaching his 19th birthday. He returned to Eastbourne six months later, playing in just one club match, sharing the points in a McArthur Cup match against Horsham. He also spent time in London, where, if you believe his claim he frequently beat… Continue reading

40 years ago, as I write this, I received a phone call that was to change my life. My friend Mike Fox had been commissioned to write a book about chess trivia and asked if I would like to co-author it. The first and longest chapter of The Complete Chess Addict, as it would become,… Continue reading

Here’s young Charles Masson Fox at home with his family in 1871. You might want to admire his father Howard’s bespoke shoes. Perhaps they were custom made by a local cordwainer: a skilled craftsman producing leather footwear for the gentry, for families like the Foxes who would have been well known throughout the community. I’d… Continue reading

Rita Fox, whom you met last time, was, assuming Charles James Fox was her biological father, not the only member of her family with an interest in chess. Let’s first go back to her great grandfather Joseph Fox. He had a brother named Richard, whose great grandson Hugh Courtney (or Courtenay) Fox had some problems… Continue reading

In the heady early years of the Ladies’ Chess Club in London, back in the mid 1890s, their teams were often headed by the F Squad: four players whose names all began with that letter. They usually played Mrs (Louisa Matilda) Fagan on top board, followed by Miss (Gertrude Alison) Field, later Mrs Donald Anderson,… Continue reading

You know the story, of course. It comes from Shaw’s play Pygmalion, but was made famous by the Lerner & Loewe musical My Fair Lady (by the way, I can strongly recommend John Wilson’s recent recording). The story concerned Eliza Doolittle, a cockney flower seller (like Lonnie Donegan and Leonard Barden, her old man was… Continue reading