Alan Connor talks to Pasquale as he celebrates five decades of setting puzzles
As we gear up to celebrate 100 years of crosswords there is another, more personal anniversary. On 20 May 1963 Don Manley – known to Guardian solvers as Pasquale– had his first puzzle published in the national press. He has since set for all the UK broadsheets and is the crossword editor of the Church Times. We did a lively Meet The Setter with Don last year; now it's time to catch up and raise a glass.
You started setting in the year that currently marks the halfway point in the history of the crossword. How settled was the cryptic form in 1963?
My first nationally published puzzle was actually a definition puzzle for the London Evening News. My first cryptic, for the Radio Times, came in October 1964. By 1963, the cryptic form was settling down. In the 1920s and 1930s, Torquemada in the Observer was simply wild!
Things began to settle in the 1940s and 1950s, when setters such as Ximenes and Afrit began to try to define what a clue ought to be – and even modern-day libertarians are often much more "Ximenean" than they might allow.
In the 1960s there were still quite a few rather weak cryptic definitions, a number of classical allusions that might fox solvers today, and a sprinkling of quotations (which aren't cryptic at all).
The subsidiary parts of clues (what many now call "wordplay", though that is a term I would apply to clues as a whole) are now more sophisticated, but were you to look at my first 1964 puzzle it would be pretty acceptable today. When I started solving the Telegraph with my father in the 1950s we still had clues with the anagram fodder clued by "(anag.)" – we've moved on since then!
And what do you think are the most interesting changes since then?
Some interesting changes have come from the cleverer manipulation of letters and from the much more diverse cultural references that we allow ourselves.
The really tough barred puzzles have changed enormously, becoming more complex, especially with the use of computers and the internet. We have a wider range of crosswords than ever, even if we worry sometimes about how many solvers there are.
Face-to-face meetings of crossworders are more common and blogs have mushroomed over the past 10 years, so the social world of crosswords has changed quite a bit for some.
What about clues?
In the 1970s we were reminded of the possibility of the composite anagram. This now features strongly in clue-writing competitions and barred puzzles, but not much in the dailies. As to cluemanship and what is fair, some gulfs have opened up and I have contributed to this by my analysis in my Crossword Manual, but the vast majority of clues now appearing are pretty solvable and many of the disagreements amount to skirmishes on the borders.
How are you marking the centenary of the crossword?
I had a sort of understanding that I would write a book on the crossword centenary but that went up the spout when Chambers was taken over, so I must leave that to others (including your good self!).
I have just given a small local Rotary Club group a talk titled Crosswords: A Hundred Years in Ten Clues and I am scheduled to deliver this again (with Colin Dexter alongside) to a larger gathering in Newbury in June. For the provision of a meal I might even be persuaded to hawk my wares elsewhere as well! And I would like to publish the talk somewhere, as a small compensation for the lack of a book. More importantly for now I popped to the pub on 20 May for a modest 50-year celebration.
How has your setting style changed over five decades? (Put another way: any regrets?)
I don't think my style has changed much but I'd like to think I'd improved over the years.
I have fairly strict principles about what constitutes fairness and I try to stick to them. I also have a pretty good awareness about what a lot of everyday solvers like (not necessarily always the same as the keen bloggers). People at church and down the road will tell me what they think of my puzzles and (I hope) I listen.
I am always keen to have a good and plausible surface meaning in every clue and would like solvers to enjoy reading the clues for sense. If someone isn't sure of a word, or maybe hasn't heard of it, I like them to be able to work it out and say: "Yes, that must be it!" This is something I have always experienced through solving Azed in the Observer, an inspiration since the 1970s.
I can play the hard game on occasion, when I want to, but that isn't always my aim. I want to appeal to the mind of the solver and sometimes to his or her sense of humour – but I am not one for laying on humour (especially of the crude type) with a trowel. Subtlety matters to me much more than belly laughs. Regrets? Rien!
Are there any publications that you'd like to set for but haven't yet done so?
I've set for lots of publications and am not looking for new ones. I had hoped at one stage to do more for the Spectator but haven't minded missing out. I have been very lucky to have had many opportunities than I ever could have dreamed of.
I applied to the Telegraph in about 1967 as a teenager and was taken on in 2002 on the day I left Oxford University Press. For one of pensionable age this has to be better than stacking shelves at B&Q.
Quite so. If you could do only one crosswording activity, would you choose setting, editing or instruction à la the Chambers Manual?
I don't think a new edition of the Manual is an option so it's between setting and editing. That's a hard choice, but I'll tell you what – I'm keeping going with the Church Times editing as long as I can.
I was a journal and books editor for 30-odd years and editing keeps me in touch with a previous experience especially as I still use ink on paper. It has also been my joy to bring along new setters, some of whom have made it to the dailies. In fact, one of my team joined the Times last week after I recommended her to the crossword editor. I was delighted!
Thank you, Don, for an illuminating chat and many congratulations as your sixth decade of setting begins this week!