For a brief period just before the Second World War Elaine Saunders, as she then was, became the most celebrated chess personality in Britain.

During the 1920s the diminutive, 10-year-old Polish émigré Sammy Reshevsky had seized media attention across the US by and defeating numerous opponents at the same time in so-called “simultaneous displays”. Now, in 1938, it appeared that a homegrown British girl chess genius was about to emulate, or even surpass, the exploits of the pre-teenager who had taken America by storm.

Elaine Zelia Saunders was born in 1926. She was a child chess prodigy; having learnt the moves from her father at 5, she was beating good players at an early age, competing in tournaments at the age of 7, and, even