But the air of mystery surrounding the whole episode is captivating a historical parallel to GCHQ’s recent Christmas card brain-teaser. Was The Telegraph really completely in the dark over the War Office’s potential interest in the competition? It is a question which is likely to remain unanswered. Not that morning, perhaps, but it certainly received plenty of attention over the following weeks. This is followed by clear attempts to play down its significance further on it states that the puzzle ‘will need no other commendation this morning’. And then there’s the military terminology ‘coup d’oeil’ – a phrase associated with quickly assessing an opponent’s weaknesses. This seems a somewhat embellished way of introducing an innocuous daily puzzle. Take the first line, for example, where it announces the crossword ‘to the world’. The language, too, seems a little suspicious. The event was evidently deemed significant enough to warrant the inclusion of the above picture on 12 January – surely this would not have been necessary for an incidental competition? Whether or not it is the influence of hindsight, it is hard to believe that The Telegraph knew nothing of the War Office’s intent. The larger article on page 4 13 January 1942 The next day, it printed two articles referencing the ‘Timeless Test’, enticing readers to have a go themselves at completing the task. On 12 January, the first edition published after the crossword ‘match’, it printed a picture of the competitors alongside an article (above). Yet it still drew considerable attention to it in the days that followed. The newspaper itself was supposedly as unaware as its readers of the potential for government-level interest in its crossword.
Such was the fame of this story that it was recently the subject of the Academy Award-winning film The Imitation Game. Their invite to meet with Colonel Nicholas of the General Staff led to their recruitment as Allied codebreakers, unlocking the complex codes of the famous ‘Enigma’ machine at Bletchley Park. A few weeks after they had taken part, the War Office sent letters to these individuals regarding a ‘matter of national importance’. Of greater significance was the governmental interest in the four successful competitors. No pressure: the participants taking the crossword test in January 1942 The Daily Telegraph, 12 January 1942 Still, four people had defied the claim of a Mr Gavin that these crosswords could not be solved within twelve minutes the £100 prize was donated to a ‘deserving Service fund’ as a result. This select group was reduced to four though, when it emerged that one person had misspelt a word in their haste to complete the challenge. Hawes, who recorded an impressive (and very precise) time of seven minutes, 57.5 seconds. Of the 25 participants, just five managed to complete the crossword within the twelve-minute deadline.
So they innocently worked their way through the cryptic teaser, which had been drawn out of a hat. They had merely turned up in response to one man’s challenge that such puzzles could not be solved within twelve minutes. Little did these select few know that their performances would be scrutinised by government officials. In January 1942, The Telegraph’s editor Arthur Watson invited 25 unsuspecting people to his newspaper’s Fleet Street newsroom to complete a crossword challenge. For the newspaper did not simply stand back and report on events, although the work of first female war correspondent Clare Hollingworth should not be downplayed, but unwittingly engaged itself in the Allied cause. A sign of its status can be traced back to the Second World War, where its editor’s willingness to depart from convention ensured the newspaper’s critical involvement in the War’s outcome. The Daily Telegraph newspaper is known for its ‘high tone’ and has acquired a reputation for being ‘serious, popular and pioneering’ over the years.
CROSSWORD QUIZ POP CULTURE LEVEL 10 ANSWERS ARCHIVE
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