Geneva 1927

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Geneva 1924

Paris and London 1926

Germany 1928

Geneva 1927

Geneva 1928

England 1936

When I was working at a chemical factory at Petit-Sacconex outside Geneva, I used to spend many pleasant evenings with a Russian friend, called Minkoff, in our favourite caf? playing chess. I became very keen indeed but never really good and eventually had to give it up, because after a session following a full day's work, I could not get to sleep and if I opened my eyes, I could see the whole chessboard on the ceiling.

Before it got to that pitch however, Minkoff told me that the reigning world's chess champion, Alekhine, was giving a demonstration that evening at the Hotel Touring et Balance against the Geneva Chess Club. We were not members, but one could pay to go in and watch. The restaurant had been cleared and the tables set out in a ring. The great Master was scheduled to play twenty games simultaneously and one game blind. We got there early and took up our positions, standing behind the then unoccupied chair of one of the club players. The room started filling, club members took their seats behind their boards, already set out and the great Master arrived, was introduced and indicated his readiness to commence.

Suddenly, the very small and agitated club secretary realised that the club member due to take the chair behind which I was standing had not arrived. He rushed across the empty circle in which the Master was standing waiting, lent over the board, grabbed my arm and forced me into the empty chair with the one word, "Play". So, I did.

The next day, the Tribune de Geneva reported approximately as follows:-

"Last evening at the Hotel Touring et Balance Monsieur Alekhine, the famous Russian Chess Championship Master played twenty games simultaneously and one blind gme. The great Master gave us all an astonishing demonstration of his great skill by winning eighteen games, including the blind one, drawing two and losing only one to "un etranger inconnu".

An unknown foreigner. Such is fame.

Geneva 1927, continued

Chatting one evening with an acquaintance in the Cafe Landolt, he asked me as an unmarried foreigner living in Geneva how I amused myself over weekends. I replied that with bridge, tennis, chess and walking in the mountains I got along all right. He told me he had a girl cousin who lived over the frontier at Annemasse, to which the Geneva trams ran, and who wanted to learn really good English. Would I be interested in giving her lessons at weekends for a couple of hours, at so much per hour? I saw no reason why not, so I agreed, pointing out Annemasse was only a short tram ride from Geneva. Unfortunately, he pointed out, his cousin lived outside Annamasse about one and a half miles on the road up towards the Saleve mountain, so if I liked I could borrow his smaller car for the trips. Nothing loath, I agreed and my visits started. The girl, who was very charming and with whom I became great friends lived next door to a small garage, some relative or other owned it, and it was agreed that whenever I went teaching, the relative would give the Sequeville-Hoyau the once over. This went on for several months very happily on all sides, until even the custom officers on the French side used to greet me with "Voici, Monsieur le Professeur, here again to give his lessons."

Then one Saturday afternoon when I was booked to go to Annemasse, I had an unexpected visit from an English friend touring in Switzerland to whom I had to show the sights, so I phoned my friend (as he had become by then) and told him what had happened and said I would go on

Sunday, if it suited Giselle, and not to leave the car out. He seemed very put out and eventually said he would probably go himself. Which he did. Whether it was because the young professor was not driving the car or what, I do not know, but they elected to do a thorough check on the Sequeville-Hoyau, as I learned some months later purely by chance from a very different circle. The customs officers found that the toolbox and the battery space had been greatly enlarged and had false bottoms on this journey - and I presume on

all its other earlier journies to Annemasse - and these were filled with thousands of lighter flints. At that time, and maybe now for all I know, the French government had a match monopoly and lighter flints, which were two a penny in Switzerland cost about a shilling each in France.

I dropped sweet Giselle like a hot brick and never passed through Annemasse again. My acquaintance (for that is what he had again become) did not appear again at the Cafe Landolt for a long time and I thought it would have been an indelicate question to ask where he had been holidaying.