Geoffrey Harber Diggle (6 December 1902 – 13 February 1993) Edward Winter
Chess Note 4337
quoting Winter, CHESS magazine, June 1993, p. 46. was a

British British may refer to: Peoples, culture, and language * British people, nationals or natives of the United Kingdom, British Overseas Territories, and Crown Dependencies. ** Britishness, the British identity and common culture * British English, ...

chess Chess is a board game for two players, called White and Black, each controlling an army of chess pieces in their color, with the objective to checkmate the opponent's king. It is sometimes called international chess or Western chess to disti ...

player and writer. Diggle contributed articles to the ''

British Chess Magazine ''British Chess Magazine'' is the world's oldest chess journal in continuous publication. First published in January 1881, it has appeared at monthly intervals ever since. It is frequently known in the chess world as ''BCM''. The founder and ...

'' (''BCM'') from 1933 to 1981, and to the British Chess Federation's publications ''Newsflash'' and ''Chess Moves'' from 1974 to 1992.

C.H.O'D. Alexander Conel Hugh O'Donel Alexander (19 April 1909 – 15 February 1974), known as Hugh Alexander and C. H. O'D. Alexander, was an Irish-born British cryptanalyst, chess player, and chess writer. He worked on the German Enigma machine at ...

called Diggle "one of the best writers on chess that I know". In his ''A Book of Chess'', Alexander reproduced ''in toto'' Diggle's account, first published in the November and December 1943 ''BCM'', of the match between Staunton and St. Amant. After Diggle told Alexander of a game he had lost in seven moves (1.e4 e5 2.Nc3 Nf6 3.Bc4 Nxe4 4.Bxf7+?! Kxf7 5.Nxe4 Nc6 6.Qf3+ Kg8 ?? 7.Ng5 ! 1-0 Davids-Diggle, London Banks League 1949), Alexander affectionately christened Diggle "the Badmaster", a facetious counterpoint to the more familiar title Grandmaster. Diggle later adopted the sobriquet as a

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, writing a series of articles in ''Newsflash'' under that name between 1974 and 1986. Chess

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Edward Winter wrote the following in his remembrance of Diggle in CHESS magazine:

Specializing in nineteenth-century chess history (particularly the Staunton period), he brought the old masters to life with rare wit and shrewdness. These qualities also permeated his accounts of the idiosyncratic doings and sayings of club "characters", such as the elderly player "who fumbled his way to perdition at reasonable speed until he was a
queen Queen or QUEEN may refer to: Monarchy * Queen regnant, a female monarch of a Kingdom ** List of queens regnant * Queen consort, the wife of a reigning king * Queen dowager, the widow of a king * Queen mother, a queen dowager who is the mother ...
and two
minor piece Minor may refer to: * Minor (law), a person under the age of certain legal activities. ** A person who has not reached the age of majority * Academic minor, a secondary field of study in undergraduate education Music theory *Minor chord ** Barb ...
s to the bad, after which he discovered that 'every move demanded the nicest calculation'", or "the
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bottom board of 1922, who complained that he had 'lost his queen about the third move and couldn’t seem to get going after that'." A former county champion, G.H.D. was charmingly self-deprecatory in his reminiscences, as when he had a game adjudicated by Tartakower: "The Great
Master Master or masters may refer to: Ranks or titles * Ascended master, a term used in the Theosophical religious tradition to refer to spiritually enlightened beings who in past incarnations were ordinary humans *Grandmaster (chess), National Master ...
, having been fetched, sat down at the board very simply and unaffectedly, and drank in through his spectacles the fruits (and probably the whole deplorable history) of the Badmaster’s afternoon strategy."

Little escaped G.H.D.'s eye, even towards the end. Modestly adapting
Oscar Wilde Oscar Fingal O'Flahertie Wills Wilde (16 October 185430 November 1900) was an Irish poet and playwright. After writing in different forms throughout the 1880s, he became one of the most popular playwrights in London in the early 1890s. He is ...
, he claimed to have "nothing to declare but his longevity", simply adding that he had "mingled from time to time with three generations of eminent players ranging from
Isidor Gunsberg Isidore ( ; also spelled Isador, Isadore and Isidor) is an English and French masculine given name. The name is derived from the Greek name ''Isídōros'' (Ἰσίδωρος) and can literally be translated to "gift of Isis." The name has survived ...
to
Nigel Short Nigel David Short (born 1 June 1965) is an English chess grandmaster, columnist, coach, and commentator, who is the vice-president of FIDE since October 2018. Short earned the Grandmaster title at the age of 19, and was ranked third in the w ...
, and rambled extensively round the highways and byways of provincial chess". He was one of the game's most stylish chroniclers.

In 1984 and 1987, ''Chess Notes'' published two collections of Diggle's ''Newsflash'' articles as ''Chess Characters: Reminiscences of a Badmaster'' and ''Chess Characters: Reminiscences of a Badmaster'', Volume II.Schachliteratur 1946-1998, Section 4.3. (Belletristik)

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Diggle, Geoffrey 1902 births 1993 deaths English non-fiction writers British chess writers British chess players English male non-fiction writers People from South Holland (district) 20th-century chess players 20th-century English male writers