Morse and Chess Following Colin Dexters Daily Mail admission that his unfulfilled ambition is to be world chess champion, I thought it might be worth pulling together a few salient facts about the chess connection in Morse (I am a chess author and master player, so I have a particular interest!). I am sure everyone here knows that Morse was named in honour of Sir Jeremy Morse, an old friend of Dexters from the world of cryptic crosswords. Sir Jeremy, one of Englands most respected bankers (and adviser to every Chancellor of the Exchequer between 1964 and 1997!) is also a great chess fan. During his 16 year tenure as Chairman of Lloyds Bank, he arranged for the bank to sponsor an annual international chess tournament in London, called the Lloyds Bank Masters. Sadly, the sponsorship ended just a year after Jeremys retirement. Sir Jeremy is also a very well known expert on chess problems, and the author of the definitive reference book Chess Problems: Tasks and Records. Despite being in his 86th year, he has just completed a new edition of the book, some 500 pages long! On the TV set, Morse always has a chess set in his flat. The only time in the series that he actually plays chess, as far as I recall, is in The Infernal Serpent, when he visits the old lady in the nursing home and beats her several times. When he and Lewis leave, Lewis chides him for not letting her win a game, only for a disgusted Morse to round on him, with the words That, Lewis, is the worst form of amateurism!
Posted on: Fri, 15 Aug 2014 17:49:28 +0000
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