White and Black pieces on a White and Black board (featuring @fred703 as author)

My story about chess and apartheid in the 1970s – part 2

How chess featured in my political awakening and criticism towards the existing social system in South Africa.

From being a fairly focused child on my academic standards, it all fell away as my appetite and love for chess grew.

I became aware of chess just after the great battle between Bobby Fischer and Boris Spassky in 1972.

As I grew in my understanding of chess I became aware of the immense skills and power that the ‘grandmaster’ had in chess, of the dominance of the Soviet Union in the chess world. The romance of the maverick American triumphing over the Soviet Chess Machine that had dominated the world (and would dominate it again for a long time after Fischer disappeared as a recluse).

In 1976 I beat the former Border chess champion, Brian Story with an unconventional opening that gave me a significant advantage that I exploited to maximum advantage. This was a momentous occasion and it featured in the Daily Dispatch, of course this fed my growing ego.

Never forget that at this level chess is played to demonstrate your intellectual superiority over your opponent.

Outwardly I was polite, friendly and fair but inside I was becoming an egotistical monster.

Donald Woods seemed to like me, especially as a chess player, I in turn liked him too. I found myself agreeing with his ideas and used to love arguing with my Dad, it was not politely disagreeing with each other, but involved a lot of loud bellowing.

My Dad used to say that it was okay for me to have liberal views as I was mixing with the educated blacks, not the majority of casual workers that he worked with. They would never have the maturity to vote intelligently and this “one man, one vote” was a recipe for disaster.

My mother hated these arguments and told us that if we did not stop arguing at the Sunday lunch table she would leave.

Obviously this was part of my genetic make-up;

My Dad said that when he was a child, his family would gather in Cape Town at his grandparents home for the Christmas holidays, and there often used to be raging political arguments between the men, the one side supported the SAP (South African Party) and the other side supported the Nats (the National Party).

My Dad’s father, “Spuddy” would see which side was losing and then he would switch to the other side to balance the argument and keep it going, this process was repeated several times without being obvious to the feuding parties.

These arguments were always of great agitation to the women folk.

Interesting how these patterns of behavior continue from generation to generation, now in my own family, my daughter who is studying law, and I have some more bellowing battles, and once again my wife threatens departure unless we stop debating issues relating to feminism.

Donald owned a Mercedes and lived in a fancy house (according to my standard of living) in Berea in East London. I went to play chess there several times, the house was extremely noisy with lots of white and black kids running around.

All this was ignored by Donald as we played, this was quite different to me.

About this time I remember that Donald Woods successfully sued the Minister of Police, Jimmy Kruger for R75 000, which was an astronomical amount of money. I don’t even remember what the issue was. I was selected to play for the East London Club at board number 5 in a tournament in Grahamstown, involving teams from Rhodes University, Grahamstown Chess Club and a team from the Port Elizabeth Chess Club.

I won all my games pretty comfortably. I remember travelling in the back seat of Donald’s Mercedes, and how comfortable it was, the seats were even real leather!

In 1976 several items changed my little world, one significant and the other not so much. At this time the leadership of our church announced a major revision in policy where all men could hold the priesthood in the church, regardless of colour and the second one related to the School protests in Soweto.

What was significant about the first one from our Church, was that the attitude of my Dad changed immediately to a liberal attitude for the black people in South Africa.

This astonished me, my father who was so conservative and supportive of the National Party changed in no less than one day.

When he spoke to me he said simply, if the Black man is good enough to hold the Priesthood of God, he certainly is entitled to vote! Just like that we lost the delight of violent verbal jousting with each other. I just could not believe that a man could change just like that but I regarded it as one of the most memorable moments in my life.

The other one where all the children protested in Soweto against being taught in Afrikaans, and many were killed by the police.

I remember thinking about why can’t they be taught in their own language but it makes no sense that they are destroying their schools and books.

When I went to chess the one night at the East London Chess Club I walked up to Donald and greeted him but he only responded by holding up his index finger against his lips indicating that I should not speak to him.

It made no sense until a fellow chess member told me that Donald was not allowed to speak to more than one person and that the surly fellow next to the chess board was a member of the Security Services of the police.

It is amazing how naïve and unobservant I was.

By now I was disgusted with the police and was realizing that all the black people who kept jumping out of the John Vorster Police Square in Johannesburg were not committing suicide but being murdered.

Somewhere about this time Steve Biko was murdered by the police through brutal beatings and incredible cruelty.

I remember the feelings of despair that I felt at the time, how could some human beings treat another with such wickedness? How could there be such hatred?

About this time in 1977 when I was in my final year of school my chess reached its peak and I won all the tournaments I was involved in.

When I won the Border Open Chess Championship in 1977 together with several other titles, I was photographed for the Daily Dispatch and articles published in East London and Port Elizabeth.

I found it embarrassing when I read the articles as some of the information was nonsense. The article I liked the most was published in the South African Chess magazine.

Then the terrible story where the secret police laced the clothing of the Woods children with acid and their six year old daughter sustained severe burns.

Most people in the East London community were horrified.

It was the last straw for Donald and he fled the country taking his family with him. I remember feeling that East London was a little poorer after their departure.

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