I am seventy seven now and getting a bit past it chess wise! I've moved up here to Kent England for health reasons and to be closer to my daughter. I lived in Devon previously where I organised local tournaments and played for several clubs. My last post was helping teach juniors at the club which I loved , working with the youngsters was very rewarding. In the distant past I was Devon Intermediate Champion plus local Exeter and District Champion a few times , plus played for Devon a few times. Also , Secretary , President and general factotum at various Devon Clubs. Seems a long time ago!I've always enjoyed chess but my standard has never been that great about 155 odd BCF ( about 1850- 1890 ELO or whatever ) at its best, I didn't start playing chess until I was 33 ! I used to play a lot of five minute chess , but because of various problems was prone to concentration lapses and started to lose too many! Still fun , but maybe time to give up and concentrate on longer games which I'm now maybe a bit better at than fast ones! Must have played most of the openings in my time but never liked the French and its positions and always preferred white against the Sicilian! For some strange reason too , despite the better knowledge of much better players than me I've always preferred knights to bishops but there you go! Trouble is now I've forgotten most of the openings I used to play. I really intended to browse up on a few of my old openings I enjoyed success with twenty years odd ago but haven't the stamina! I therefore tend to play mostly outside the book I'm afraid.I've been urged too by my daughter to join the local club five miles away in Ashford , probably to keep me occupied , but for health reasons , hips and a recurring mouth swelling problem plus throat cancer and heart problems I've not felt much up to it and my memories of my other clubs was that at my age most of my contemporaries were retiring from the club! Anyway sorry to bore you all with my personal problems , but pleased to say I'm getting my fill of chess on here and it's nice to meet so many folk from all round the world over the net chess board! I've only ever had the misfortune to encounter one rude player who was abusive from my first greeting to him. I got the impression that friendship didn't come into chess with him and he even referred to my poor bullet rating. I should say as I only ever played one bullet game and stopped after it was hardly a good example! I think he only saw what he wanted to see. The fact that part of his name included the pretentious word 'expert' with a capital E should have put me on my guard!! I resigned the game after three moves and moved on so I hope he enjoys the points on his so called rating because life is too short. p.s I had my first operation on 23rd July and my second was on the 3rd December last. My swellings have thankfully cleared apart from the odd occurrence. I have now had to check out my eye at the local specialist hospital because it was deteriorating in vision badly but nothing nasty was found behind the eye thankfully. Also I've been getting extensive treatment lately for throat cancer.I've changed my avatar. The picture of me is with my wife outside our first house in the early nineteen sixties when my means of transport was a Lambretta! All the very best to all you lovers of chess everywhere!