Choice Blog

Crosswords and forgiveness

After a lifetime of studiously avoiding them I have suddenly started doing crossword puzzles.

Only the straightforward ones, not the cryptic versions, I should say, before some of my friends start casting doubts.

I have no idea why. I just started doing one of the national papers puzzles online and now I do it every day with a bit of help from Mrs Wright.

Given words are my profession I should have been a keen and proficient puzzler. It should be in my genes, too. My mother loved the crosswords in the local paper and spent ages with her Pears Cyclopaedia and Roget's Thesaurus every evening. Then in the morning her friend Nina would arrive form he other end of the kitchen table comparing their answers.

Only the latest gossip punctuated by expressions of amazement at the goings-on in the village interrupted the puzzling.

Mum would always send in the grid and won the prize a couple of times. That is until I became a junior reporter and joined the staff of the paper. Her pleasure at me getting the jon was immediately reduced when she realised that she could no longer enter and her crosswording would be just for fun from then on.

There was further disappointment when I was part of the team who decided to close her favourite paper the Thrapston, Raunds and Oundle Journal. that had a crossword too. i was never fully forgiven.