Record-breaker: Leonard Barden’s chess column celebrates 70 years and a place in history

Now 96, this week marks a milestone for our columnist, whose astonishing career has set a Guinness World Record

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eptember 1955. The dying embers of one era, the dawning of another. It’s been five months since Sir Winston Churchill retired as prime minister. In another four Elvis Presley will release Heartbreak Hotel, his first worldwide hit. Food rationing is over. Frozen fish fingers, courtesy of Clarence Birdseye, have just arrived.

Change is also in the air at the Manchester Guardian. On 8 September a young chess master from Croydon, Leonard Barden, writes his first column. His subject is a Russian teenager, Boris Spassky, whose games, Barden notes, “all show the controlled aggression characteristic of a great master”.

The writing is lively and accessible. The judgment impeccable. Spassky will go on to become world champion. Meanwhile, Barden is on the foothills of a journey that, 70 years, 14 prime ministers, and nearly 4,000 articles later, is still going strong.