Chess matches even extended to the University Championships. One of these was in Birmingham (England), a concrete jungle but at least it had its own railway station. One night our team went out on the piss and we were very much the worse for wear after, in my case, much rum and blackcurrant and possibly a Vindaloo. Our chain-smoking top player, John Stephen (a geneticist who knew a guy called Michael Jackson - regrettably not the singer) was violently ill with such a diet but still got up the next day. I kept everything down and spent all the next day expecting vomit to emerge at any time. It was a shame really, because we were up against a Cambridge team - I was wasted by some lank-haired, limp-wristed individual and the team was soundly thrashed.
Even after University my chess ezploits continued. I got a postdoctoral position in Swansea making peptides, and lived on the Gower Peninsula. I played for a little village club called Pennard for three years (even against the University teams), where the standard was such that it hovered between the two top divisions of the West Wales league and I played on either board 1 or 2, depending on availbility and illness. I didn't learn from Birmingham that chess and drink really didn't mix, one night sitting up with our team captain (Adrian Davies) drinking Carling Black Label when his wife and son had sensibly gone to bed. I blacked out when I tried to stand up and don't remember how I got home. I won my first competition when I was there, however. Also, the British Championship came there one year. I got 4/11 in the Major Open section.
After Swansea, I went to Orpington in Kent where I worked at Coates Brothers. It wasn't a happy time for me, though I liked my landlady (Sheila Crouch). More of her another time. I played chess for the local club the eighteen months I was there, between learning to drive rather late in life (whatever you do, don't drive in Sidcup at lunchtime!). The form was similar to Pennard and I did briefly have to scale the heights when our top player was injured in the Cannon Street rail crash (he broke his arm). My last competitive over the board game was on April 17, 1990, against Sevenoaks.
For a long time during all this I did play postal chess, not to mention the big interest I had in chess playing computers, and I achieved a rating in this up to BCF200 (Elo2200)! I haven't played any chess seriously since sometime in 1991 (probably around the time I lost interest in the pop charts and Freddie Mercury died), but that was because the time consuming game had been overtaken by meeting my wife, Christine.
Jack Orchison
April 22, 2014.
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