“I went to this 24 hr Marathon on Saturday morning at Cowlersley Community Centre starting at 10.00 am and what an enjoyable and uplifting event it was!
This is a club which started last April with 2 members and now has 95 mainly through “bush telegraph” and friends of friends. They have a star player who is 8 years of age and the rest of the group are all ages up to about 80!!
They were welcoming and friendly and really had this marathon so well organized with food arriving most of the day and a curry for the people who were playing overnight into Sunday morning.
Without trying they encouraged everyone and I had a challenge match with the 8 year old (which was so enlightening) and guess who won!!! My husband also played a couple of games and I hope he is going to think about joining the group on Monday evenings at the Travellers’ Rest, Meltham.
I came away from this event after a very enjoyable morning, feeling that here is a group where you can forget all your troubles and concentrate on playing a challenging game, enjoy yourself into the bargain and get away from it all. It was encouraging for children of all ages and keeps the now ‘old fashioned’ games ongoing as there seems to be an unfortunate demise in games such as dominoes, draughts and card games.
We talked about the outdoor chess set that used to be outside the Library in Huddersfield during the summer months where people, particularly office workers, used to play chess in their dinner hour. This sowed a seed about perhaps having outdoor chess in the Robert Ashton park or even something in the proposed new building in the park”
