The rook ’n’ role models
QUESTION Are there any good films in which the game of chess is the central theme? I’m trying to get my children interested in it. In the Ingmar Bergman 1957 classic the Seventh Seal, disillusioned knight Antonius Block (Max von Sydow) plays chess with Death as he attempts to forestall his demise. But perhaps more instructive is the excellent Innocent Moves (1993), better known by its U.S. title Searching For Bobby Fischer, in which Josh (Max Pomeranc) shows signs of being a chess prodigy.
his father (Joe Mantegna) hires coldblooded chess instructor Bruce Pandolfini (Ben Kingsley), who encourages the boy to adopt the aggressive traits of U.S. world champion Bobby Fischer.
Josh’s alternative influence is Vinnie, a speed chess hustler (Laurence Fishburne). Conflict arises when Josh refuses to accept Fischer’s misanthropic ideals in favour of Vinnie’s more sporting nature.
Another interesting film is Fresh (1994) directed by Boaz Yakin. Sean nelson plays 12-year-old black boy Fresh, brought up amid new York’s crack epidemic. his only respite is chess games in the park, overseen by his estranged father Sam (Samuel L. Jackson). Fresh uses chess strategy to extricate himself from the drugs trade.
Knights Of the South Bronx is a decent, if formulaic, 2005 tV film about a teacher (ted Danson) who helps students at a tough inner-city school succeed by teaching them chess.
there are also a couple of excellent documentaries. Game Over: Kasparov And the Machine (2003) is about Garry Kasparov, arguably the best-ever chess player, and his battle with IBM’s super computer Deep Blue. Kasparov believed IBM cheated, using a human to improve the computer’s strategies.
As a metaphor for his suspicion, the film weaves in the story of the turk, a chessplaying automaton built in the 18th century and secretly operated by humans.
Bobby Fischer Against the World explores the former champion’s fascinating life.
James Knowles, London SW5.
QUESTION In medieval times, a thing might be done if ‘permitted by the courtesy of England’. What exactly was this? thIS is mainly concerned with feudal inheritance. If a wife was an heiress who brought an estate of land to her marriage and then died before her husband, provided she had produced a child ‘that was heard once to cry’, the land would be held by the husband, not in his own right but as tenant by Courtesy of england (because this arrangement was peculiar to that country). On his death, the land passed to the rightful heir.
One example was John of Gaunt (13401399), the third son of edward III who became Duke of Lancaster and titular King of Castile and Leon. By 1363, John ‘was the greatest feudatory in england’ because in 1359 he had married Blanche of Lancaster, younger daughter and co-heiress of henry of Grosmont, Duke of Lancaster (d. 1361). In 1362, she became sole heiress.
She and John had seven children, three of whom survived infancy, among them henry Bolingbroke, the future henry IV. their first son John, who was probably born and died in 1362, entitled him to courtesy.
So when Blanche died in 1368, her heir was her infant son henry, but John of Gaunt held her estate for life.
henry therefore had to wait 30 years for his inheritance.
John married twice more and fathered more children, but none had any rights to the Lancaster inheritance. Keith Ladd, Taunton, Somerset.
QUESTION During the Battle of the Atlantic, the cargo ship Nerissa was sunk by U-552. She was loaded with war material and 175 members of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police — with their horses. Why was this? At the outbreak of World War II, the Canadian Army was without a military police unit, so on September 13, 1939, the royal Canadian Mounted Police was granted permission to form the Canadian Provost Company.
Initially made up of 120 volunteers, most of them were serving in the UK by 1940. On June 15, 1940, a new Canadian Provost Corps took over responsibility for policing the Canadian Army, its members no longer a part of the rCMP. Many of its newer members had never been police officers before enlisting.
the SS nerissa was a mixed passenger/ cargo ship built for the red Cross line. At the outbreak of war, the ship was pressed into service for war work, refitted to carry 250 troops and armed with a 4in gun and a Bofors Gun (anti-aircraft gun).
On April 21, she began her 40th Atlantic crossing from halifax, nova Scotia, to Liverpool with 306 passengers and crew, 145 of whom were Canadians.
On April 23, on Admiralty orders, she separated from her convoy to make the crossing alone, her speed being considered to give her some protection against submarine attack.
At 11.30pm the nerissa was struck amidships by a torpedo fired from U-552 which had been looking for targets northwest of Ireland. the ship was 200 miles from Liverpool and 100 miles off the coast of Donegal. U-552 was mainly known for sinking the American destroyer USS reuben James in October 1941.
Accounts by survivors state that an orderly evacuation of the nerissa was in progress when a second torpedo hit, splitting the ship in two. At first light a Bristol Blenheim aircraft located lifeboats carrying 84 survivors and circled them for an hour until the destroyer hMS Veteran arrived.
Listed as passengers on the nerissa were 145 Canadians, none of whom were serving members of the rCMP, but some might formerly have been so.
Most were drawn from all branches of the Canadian Army. Seven were from the Canadian Provost Company. the nerissa was the only troopship carrying Canadian soldiers to be lost through enemy action.
Of those 145 passengers, 83 died, along with most of the graduates of an rAF British Commonwealth Air training Programme, three norwegian pilots and 11 American ferry pilots, as well as other members of the military and ship’s crew.
the story of the horses was related in the books the Fourth Service — Merchantmen at War 1939-45 by John Slader and in Atlantic Star by David A. thomas. however, these claims are not borne out by the ship’s passenger list.
Bob Dillon, Edinburgh.
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