For Freedom
Stowmarket Chess Club’s Gareth Young wrote the following piece just before the current season started. Food for thought…
“So here I am enjoying the sunshine and the blue sky, and feeling very blessed to have three lovely children (two of whom also enjoy playing chess as I do) and also feeling blessed to live in a pretty part of England even if it is flat. (Suffolk will always be home to me). My thoughts turn to chess and how it’s not long before the new season gets underway, and I really must start to read some chess books to improve my game as I had a very flat season previously and keen to improve.
But then my thoughts suddenly change to what was happening 100 years ago when dark clouds were hovering over Europe and how events back then have changed our world to what it is today. If you didn’t know by now I am talking about the Great War, where a young generation of men answered the call and left these beaches to fight for freedom. Little did anyone know of the horrors that would lay ahead; many young men would not return home and many that did were broken men. There couldn’t have been many distractions for the men on the front line but I’m sure chess must have been one that could have given them some form of relief from the everyday horrors that they had to live with.
If it wasn’t for these men and women I wouldn’t be feeling lucky to have what I have got. And my question is? Is there any room in Suffolk chess where we could honour these generation of men as a mark of respect? Because if it wasn’t for them we all wouldn’t be enjoying the game.”