Castaway oxfordtimes.co.uk Sylvia Vetta talks to crossword compiler Don Manley his month’s castaway uses many “I attended the town’s primary school and aliases, including — Duck, after passing the eleven plus exam I went to Pasquale, Quixote, Bradman, Tiverton Grammar School. My older sister Jean Giovanni, and Izetti. To uncover became a teacher and she suggested I take the T entrance exam for a foundation scholarship to his secret identity, think Blundell’s.” crossword clues — and if Don or Donald Blundell’s is an independent school named springs to mind you are close to solving after Peter Blundell, a wealthy Elizabethan the riddle. merchants who made his fortune principally in Don Manley’s agile mind likes to challenge the woollen industry. us for Donald is a crossword setter. After Blundell’s death in 1601 his legacy was In his foreword to Don’s book the Chambers used to establish the school in 1604. When the Crossword Manual, another well-known school was remodelled as a public school there Oxford-based crossword compiler — his friend was a stipulation that an annual scholarship and rival, Colin Dexter — describes a train was to be awarded to a clever boy whose journey they took together to record a parents were of limited means. television programme, called Crosstalk. Don said: “In 1958, I was that ‘poor boy’ and “At Oxford station, Don bought The Times, I felt rather an outsider in the public school The Independent, The Guardian and The Daily culture. In my time a lot of the boys went into Telegraph. Without any assistance from me he the Army and everyone was ‘volunteered’ into had completed them all before we reached the school’s Cadet Corps. Thanks to my Reading. 23 minutes.” knowledge of physics I rose to the rank of But Don thinks the journey might have taken sergeant. a bit longer than that. “More my thing was the school play. I Don’s story begins in Cullompton, Devon, remember playing Dogberry in Much Ado About where he was born in 1945. Nothing. In the cast, as one of my henchmen, He said: “My father, Chave was a commercial was Robert Fox who became a distinguished traveller selling animal medicines to farmers journalist and covered the Falklands War for and my mother Alma was a farmer’s daughter, the BBC. so my roots are rural. Don went on to study physics at Bristol “We rarely took a holiday so between terms, University in 1963 but not before he had so I often accompanied my dad on his rounds his first crossword published, aged 17, in visiting farms and came to appreciate the The London Evening News.’ Devon and Somerset countryside. “A visitor drew my attention to the fact that “My father took The Telegraph, The Express and anyone could submit a crossword for The Daily Mail and did all the crosswords. On publication. I remember the excitement of Sunday afternoons we would solve the Radio receiving a Coutts bank cheque in the post for Times puzzle together. I was beginning to get the hang of cryptic puzzles by the age of Continued on page 11 about 13,” Don recalled. 8 Oxfordshire Limited Edition July 2014 oxfordtimes.co.uk Castaway y lmsle Wa ew Andr aphs: Photogr Bradman’s famous Duck July 2014 Oxfordshire Limited Edition 9 oxfordtimes.co.uk Castaway From page 9 two guineas. I noticed that the cryptic puzzles When leading in the Radio Times had a different setter each walks for the week so I assumed they were sent in by Ramblers, Don is readers. I thought there was no reason why I known to stop and should not send them one. tap a tree — an “I sent several, but when they were all action in honour of rejected, I wrote asking the reason. They his late father explained that they were too untidy and on scrappy paper. “So I improved my presentation and it worked — they published the first one I sent in 1964. My first clue in the 15-by-15 grid for the Radio Times was: ‘Doctor refuses to work for TV series (10) (solution: Moonstrike). After that they accepted several more. “But on the day Neil Armstrong landed on moon, I received a letter from the Radio Times telling me that they would not be publishing any more crossword puzzles — so that was it for a while,” Don explained. Don wanted to follow a career in science — and loved astronomy. “I read physics at Bristol. The department was led by a Nobel prizewinner, Professor C F Powell. After graduating in 1966, I went to work as a research engineer for the Standard Telecommunications Laboratories in Harlow. “It was the birthplace of optical fibre communications. A lot of brilliant scientists — of whom I was not one — worked for the company. It was a good experience for me learning to live on my own and meet people of different backgrounds, beliefs and circumstances. “I grew up fast in those four years but felt that I should look for a new career. I did not want to go into teaching, even though my mother had bought me an academic gown when I graduated just in case I decided to teach!” Don said. “My first idea was to study computer Don believes that the origin of the use of tenants left, just before we moved to Oxford I programming, but then I thought ‘Why not do aliases by compilers probably came from the was able to sell it and our Cheltenham house something using my language skills?’ I was poet Edward Powys Mathers who, in 1926, and use the proceeds to put a deposit on a offered a publishing job in Stevenage with the assumed the name Torquemada for his house in Hayward Road. Without that, we Institute of Electrical Engineering, but did not puzzles published in The Observer. could not have afforded a home in OX2. Susan fancy living in another new town. Then I saw a The crossword puzzle in the form we know went back into the academic world,” Don post advertised also in publishing at The it today is a fairly recent invention. On added. Institute of Physics in Bristol. I applied and was December 21, 1913, Arthur Wynne, a “On the day my daughter was born in 1977, accepted. Since then I have been a verbal journalist from Liverpool, published a ‘word- I had a phone call from Gyles Brandreth (who engineer. cross’ puzzle in the New York World. This was then working for Hamlyn) asking me to “I enjoyed my time as a student in Bristol, puzzle is frequently cited as the first send him a proposal for a book on cryptic but going back in 1970 it all felt different as crossword puzzle, and Wynne as the crosswords. Following five of these, I sent him a my friends had left. I joined a church inventor. proposal for a book about crosswords. community where I made new friends and one Later, the name of the puzzle was changed “Nothing came of it, but five years later a in particular. Susan Richardson, from Northern to ‘crossword’. friend contacted me saying Hamlyn wanted Ireland, had a PhD in biochemistry and so we Wanting a new challenge, Don and his him to write a book, but he added ‘ I think it is were introduced. family moved to Cheltenham in 1989. He more your thing.’ He handed me the outline “That was 1972 and we married at Christ joined a young educational company called proposal — it was a photocopy of the one I had Church, Clifton, a year later.” Stanley Thornes, where he commissioned sent Gyles! Somewhat disgusted, I did not Don and Susan’s children, Richard and Gilly, and edited their first successful science follow that one up!” Don said. were born in Bristol. Richard, 38, is now a tax textbook for schools. From there he moved to Oxford seems to be the beating heart of the accountant in Salisbury and Gilly, 36, is a Oxford to Blackwell and then to Oxford crossword world as Jonathan Crowther television producer and lives in London. Gilly University Press (OUP). (who ran the prestigious ‘Azed’ clue writing has directed episodes of The Apprentice. She Don said: “Thornes took over Blackwell’s competition in The Observer) and Colin Dexter has two children Ferris and Gilby and Jonathan educational publishing and OUP took over also live in Oxford. has a daughter, Charlotte. Nelson Thornes, so all the books I ever Don says the crossword culture is friendly Don spent seven years editing The Journal of published are now with OUP where I — but there are divisions of opinion when it Physics D: Applied Physics — an important peer finished up! comes to what is a fair clue. reviewed publication. In between being a dad, “Thornes was probably my most successful Colin, Jonathan and Don are often known as when the publishing became less challenging, period in terms of making income for a the Oxford Mafia as the three of them follow he was tempted to renew his interest in company but I felt isolated — apart from Ximenes and not the ‘libertarian’ school where crossword setting. getting on well with my authors. That is why proper grammar is disregarded. “I resumed with very hard crossword puzzles I moved to Blackwells in 1985 and from “In 1981 I was introduced to Betty for Games and Puzzles and The Listener. I made there to OUP. Kirkpatrick from Chambers and a few years 50 of them which were published under my “I was fortunate too in that I inherited a later, she commissioned me to write Chambers new identity of ‘Duck’,” Don said.