Peter Biddlecombe

My involvement with puzzles goes back more than 50 years. At junior school (aged 9-10), my form teacher gave us a puzzle of some kind to try between calling the register and going to assembly. My first significant crossword experience was around age 13, trying the crosswords in a popular puzzle magazine, and solving most of them, but not the cryptic one.

At about 16, I found a book of easy cryptics, and then started to try ones in newspapers. In 1989 I had my first go at the Times Crossword Championship. I reached the final for the first time in 1992, and won in 2000 and 2007. In 2005, I started writing a blog about Times (and later Sunday Times) crosswords. Contact with someone at The Times, giving feedback about online crosswords, led to hearing that the ST needed a new crossword editor, and applying for the job, which I started in December 2010. I edit all the crosswords in the ST and now the one in the Times Literary Supplement. I write some of the crosswords in the TLS, and in the ST general knowledge series.

My previous career was mainly in computer programming, and spare-time activities other than crosswords have included (past) long-distance running and (distant past and current) trombone playing.

Just to be clear: Newspaper crossword editors are often identified as the author of their paper’s crossword collection books. This does not mean that they wrote all (or indeed any) of the crosswords in those books.