David LeMoir

Chess was a great distraction from my career in business management and management consultancy. In my mid-40s, divorce and a second marriage made me reassess my life. I took early retirement, moved to rural Norfolk, and indulged my interests in cricket and in playing and writing about chess.

Having had several articles published in national magazines, I fell into writing books by accident. The first (How To Be Lucky In Chess) was not intended for publication, but one day I realised that it was turning out to be rather good. Gambit Books took it on and two best-sellers followed. Then ill health forced me to limit myself to writing articles, but that has been a major part of my life now for more than twenty years.

Eventually covid-19 reared its ugly head and I decided, as a lockdown project, to assemble an anthology of the best of my chess writings. The result was Chess Scribe.

Having re-caught the book-writing bug, I moved on to a book taking a sideways look at Miniatures - games of twenty five moves or less - a book that should be launched in the coming months by the major chess publisher Everyman.

While I have been waiting for that book to be published, I have compiled an anthology of articles from the first fourteen years of En Passant, the local magazine that I edit and publish. It is entitled Down-Home Chess and is mainly a service for the chess players of the English county of Norfolk, whose magazine it is. However, the low price gives any reader the chance to see why En Passant won three national awards during that time.