WW2 regulations

[MJMcCready]

Hi there, what were the regulations for chess clubs during WW2?

I have unearthed reportage of Bedford chess club being asked to suspend activities during it (was this a regulation?) but then they opened a new club during it! My understanding is that chess pretty much came to a grinding halt along with almost everything else but presumably that changed when the war was close to ending? Or perhaps they learnt had learned how to build a bombproof chess club by then?

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[Tim Spanton]

Where do you get the idea that the club was asked to suspend its activities?

[Leonard Barden]

Croydon chess club was open daily in 1943-45, situated in the basement of Kennards, the largest department store in town. Its membership reached 150, of whom around 30-40 were active. It stayed open even during the 1944 V1 flying bombs, and I frequently went there after finishing school for the afternoon.

[John Upham]

Where do you get the idea that the club was asked to suspend its activities?

Rather than voluntarily suspend their own activities?

[MJMcCready]

I don't know which is true. Yes you are right it doesn't state they were asked to, I just assumed they were. So chess clubs didn't generally close during the war?

[John Upham]

I don't know which is true. Yes you are right it doesn't state they were asked to, I just assumed they were. So chess clubs didn't generally close during the war?

I would imagine that some did and some did not. Not sure what "generally close" means: I assume you mean the majority?

[MJMcCready]

I don't know which is true. Yes you are right it doesn't state they were asked to, I just assumed they were. So chess clubs didn't generally close during the war?

I would imagine that some did and some did not. Not sure what "generally close" means: I assume you mean the majority?

Yes. I assumed blackouts and sirens and the likes kept people at home during the evenings. All rather assumptive on my part.

[Kevin Thurlow]

I noticed that David Hooper won the Redhill Club Championship "1939-1949", and wondered if it were lazy engraving, but the Chairman of the day (1974) assured me that the club kept going and the event was played every year, with the occasional suspension of play during air raids. I did wonder why young David was still there, eagerly winning chess events all over Surrey and South London, when he might be in the Services, but I think there was a good and honourable reason that he was not (but I have forgotten it at present).

Just as today, there were sufficient older players to keep chess clubs going, and I suspect there was not much else entertainment on offer.

[Matt Mackenzie]

My impressions - including from contemporary sources such as CHESS magazine - is that activity fell to a pretty low level by around 1941-42 (the peak of "total war") but gradually increased thereafter. And the immediate post-war years actually saw something of a chess boom - partly due to all those who got interested in the game whilst in the forces.

[MJMcCready]

Yes, that's what I thought. There was a sense that the war was coming to an end quite some time before it actually did, about 12-18 months if I remember correctly, I stand to be corrected here. So we can say that during the worst parts of the war, street lights were off and buildings blacked out and people were encouraged to take shelter. So a lot of clubs probably did stop for a while then if so.

[Colin Patterson]

I remember my granddad worked in a factory that manufactured the searchlights that they trained on the enemy bombers. In the evenings he frequently attended a snooker club in Newcastle, and told me he would catch a late night train home to Gateshead, hoping that there wouldn't be a bombing raid, because the train drivers would respond to the sirens by stopping mid-station and turning off all the lights. Mostly the passengers would then get off and walk home along the tracks, or else the trip could take an eternity. Not a very chessy story, but it amused me at the time.