Let’s take a trip back in time, to the era popularly known as the Crossword Panic of 1944. Who could ever imagine the ties between puzzles and an incredible five-letter term that signifies drastic and paralysing fear? Well, cruciverbalists would be familiar with this intriguing piece of history.
Can you believe it? It’s been 80 years this month since the harmless Daily Telegraph crossword became a source of unprecedented frenzy, leading to an outbreak of spy allegations and the risk of dismissal for a school principal.
Let’s talk about this school principal. Leonard Dawe, head of Strand School, was carrying out his professional duties in Surrey, having moved from South London due to the wartime situation. Apart from making certain the students were well-versed in their Latin grammar, Dawe also enjoyed creating crossword puzzles for the newspaper. Alarm bells rang at MI5 two years earlier when ‘Dieppe’ appeared as an answer to one of the crossword clues, and the failure of the Allied invasion in the German-held port occurred two days later. The situation was brushed off as mere coincidence until, in May 1944, further suspicious clues started appearing.
Intriguingly, Utah was a solution to a clue, and this was also the secret name for a D-Day beach landing spot. Successive weeks saw ‘Omaha’, which also happened to be the secret name for another beach, appear, followed by ‘Overlord’, the secret name for the D-Day operation. When Neptune – the codename for the naval attack – turned out to be the answer just days before the event, MI5 decided it was time to pay a visit.
Dawe, in a 1958 BBC interview, recounted the thorough investigation conducted by two men from MI5, which also spread to his co-compiler Melville Jones. At a juncture, there was an almost imminent dismissal facing Dawe. But just like a regular crossword, everything became clear, and the matter got resolved.
As a 1984 Daily Telegraph story revisited this remarkable sequence of coincidences, past students revealed how Dawe sometimes sought their help in filling out the blank crossword grids before forming the clues. The boys, as it turned out, had a chance to hear the chatter of US and Canadian soldiers camping near the school, which likely was the source of the hints for the crossword clues.
Who would have thought that a simple crossword could cause such a frenzy? My own mum, for instance, was notorious for getting in a flap if she hadn’t got her crossword to hand. Her infatuation with the black-and-white grid puzzles was so severe that she once engaged in postal fraud. Upon seeing a crossword through the transparent packaging of a newsletter delivered for me, her sharp gaze turned dubious. She subtly opened the letter, solved the cryptic puzzle speedily and sealed the package back up.
Consequently, it was not surprising when she had a crossword in tow while we paid a visit to one of London’s most infamous hubs for debauchery.
We unexpectedly found ourselves in Soho’s Groucho Club, a favourite spot for celebrities and artists, in the late 1990s. We were visiting relatives nearby when a chance to interview Irish chef Richard Corrigan at his Lindsay House restaurant presented itself.
Working with the Farmers’ Journal at that time, there was nothing more appealing to us than tales of farmer offspring who had achieved success. And Corrigan was surely tasting that success. So much so, that he asked us to wait for him in the Groucho Club while he attended to his bustling day.
I was beyond thrilled to be stepping into the realm of this exclusive club where Princess Diana had dined with Wayne Sleep, and Oliver Reed had affectionately called him “little sausage”. Among its patrons were stars like Kate Moss, Elton John, and Madonna, and an ongoing list of memorable events; Bono singing Happy Birthday to Bill Clinton and Damien Hirst spending his £20,000 Turner Prize win at the bar, being just a few.
Though our visit lacked any wild spectacles, we were not without celebrity sightings. We managed to spot Jonathan Ross and his wife, and some glamourous women who could pass as the popular ‘IT girls’ of the time.
Yet, my mother remained unswayed by the celebrity glam in the shadowy corners of the club. After briefly pondering the presence of these individuals in a bar mid-workday, she dived into her capacious handbag and got down to her crossword.
Had a crossword puzzle solicited her views on the Groucho Club, her response would’ve consisted of 11 letters – unenthusiastic.