The spirit of crosswords past

Author   petebiddlecombePosted on Categories Announcement
Those who like a tough challenge might like to buy a paper copy of the Times today. It has a puzzle supplement with Times crosswords from 1996, 1976, 1956, and 1936. The oldest two will probably be very tough. There’s a commentary with the puzzles from Helen Ougham, saying that she was all-correct except for one 1936 answer, with the help of some books. Based on my experience with the 75th anniversary book, that’s very good solving.

So with the daily cryptic, jumbo and Listener, that’s seven cryptic puzzles. We just might get round to doing blog entries for the vintage puzzles …

3 comments on “The spirit of crosswords past”

  1. Thanks for the info. My newsagent didn’t have any copies left when I went down, so I wasn’t going to bother to get it. I’ll try somewhere else now.
  3. I had no trouble with 1996, but 1976 proved to be a bit of a shock. I was 6 down when I gave up, suspecting (proved right) that the answers I hadn’t got I would never get. In other words no “kick self” moment.
    I tackled the earlier puzzles without any serious expectation of success and so it again proved!
    I often wonder if anyone actually solved these old puzzles at the time: I guess they must have done. I was mightily impressed by Helen’s performance.

Comments are closed.