An 11-Year-Old Wrote One Letter. Then a Bus Arrived.

Mine are about a pothole on our road, the parking outside the infant school and, once, a yoghurt.

His went like this. The club, which the principal had encouraged pupils to set up the previous autumn, did not have enough chessboards. His dad suggested he write to the Ulster Chess Union. Karina Campbell, from the union, replied, visited the school and brought boards with her. She then helped link the club with Glenwood, whose teacher had already asked the union to find his own club an opponent. One letter, one reply, one away fixture. My pothole is now old enough to start school.

On the afternoon of 21 June 2023, eleven Glenwood players got off the bus to find twelve St Nicholas’ players set up at the boards. Nobody was stood down. As both his account and Karina’s report record, the spare player played Karina in each round. The visit was to last about an hour, so, as he put it, there was no time to lose. He won two and drew one of his three games. Before the visitors left, each of them got a lovely little snack bag. I have hosted children’s parties for fifteen years and never once thought of snack bags for the away team.

The real business, though, was off the board. Every player was in P7, and the main talking point apart from chess, Karina wrote, was where they were going to secondary school. Some of them, from both schools, found they were going to the same one. They came for a chess match and went home with a contact list. I have been to fourteen networking breakfasts. I came home with a lanyard.

He left St Nicholas’ on Friday 30 June. I went home and wrote my forty-second letter about the pothole, and this time, on the advice of a P7 in Carrickfergus, I got someone younger to sign it. The youngest, eight, put his name at the bottom in felt tip. The council replied in nine days. It was addressed to him.