My first words in the Guardian were, to my discredit, nothing to do with crosswords. In a column in the Guide in the mid-1990s, I recalled a tale I had heard about an envelope from some far-off land marked simply …
Lawrie McMenemy
Football
England
… which duly arrived at the desk of the former Southampton manager and BBC Grandstand analyst. A testament to the posties of the 1970s. Would it be too cynical to presume the same would not happen in today’s Broken Britain?
It would. We discussed here the solver who wrote to the paper joking that a clue from Tramp was in celebration of an important birthday – then received an entirely personalised puzzle from the (to me) mysterious Pendorne. The letter ended:
John Gooder
Bishop Burton, east Yorkshire
Pendorne is known to solvers of the excellent crossword magazine 1 Across and is a dab hand at setting a puzzle that takes its (often sole) solver as its subject. Unable to resist this challenge and taking a punt on there being only one John Gooder in Bishop Burton, he assembled enough biographical information to compile a puzzle. But how to get it to its recipient?
I know that postmen and postwomen take it as a matter of pride to get letters delivered. I sent it to John Gooder c/o Bishop Burton with a note on the envelope imploring the characteristic determination of said postal workers and thanking them for their professionalism and diligence – or words to that effect! Clearly my faith was well founded – chapeau! Posties of Bishop Burton!
Posties remain indefatigable and good things do happen in this wretched decade.
A less good thing: I should either have chosen a word for our previous cluing conference that was not the same as the previous one, or flagged up that we were in the world of playfulness and established some terms and conditions regarding repeated devices. As with Pope John XX and the 1986 Australian Open, there is a woeful gap in the records. Reader, how would you clue BISHOP BURTON?