Playing The Game with our own reporter

   It’s quite inexplicable when you think about it, the fact that one moment, as the Village Guardian is just passing by at the outset of ‘Checkmate,’ that there is no chessboard set out on the lawn, then moments later there is. How do I explain this? Well quite frankly I can't, and as far as I'm aware neither can anyone else!

   I spoke to the chess champion about playing the game, No.14 told me "It satisfies the desire for power. Its the only opportunity one gets here." Well it might for those who call the moves, but not for those down on the chessboard, but at least they are not decapitated as they are wiped off the board! Which makes those chess players no better than their keepers, in the way they use people as pawns on the chessboard, as No.2 uses people in the Village as pawns in his game.

   But to be honest I have never been able to follow the moves completely, and for that matter neither can the white Queens Rook, as he makes up a move all his own! He checks the black King, now correct me if I'm wrong, but the black King and Kings Rook had actually "castled" in a previous move, hence the Rooks illegal move to put the black King in check, because its protected by the black Rook. But then the Rook is stretchered off the chessboard and a call for the substitute is put out over the village public address system! I mean you don't have substitutes in chess, that's football - surely!

  But I note that the human chess match has one fan, someone who follows the game so closely, that he follows each move on a chessboard all his own - the diminutive Butler. Now why does he do that I wonder? Is the Butler really calling in the moves on the board, after all it is the Butler who places the white Queens pawn back on the chessboard at the end of the game...........

   Seeing as how both sides look alike, how do you distinguish between black and white? No.14-the chess champion explained "Its the same as in life. You judge by attitudes. You soon know who's for or against you." Well other than that, and to simplify matters, those pieces on the chessboard who have their backs to you, are your pieces, and those facing are of your opponents..... I would have thought.

Your own reporter

Photograph by No.113b