On Sunday morning at 8.05 am I was playing Roger Hooton for the first time. Helen arrived at around 8.30 am for the day's photoshoot because there were three different opponents that I would be playing during the day, as well as the Mayor of Boston who planned to arrive some time around 5.30 pm, after I had broken the record.

In the three hours of play against Roger, I had four enjoyable and competitive games. At the end of our time, I came out slightly ahead on games won. Of course, as this was the first time for many years that I had seen some of these former pupils, I had to make sure I complied with the Guinness Company rules and restrict my conversations to a minimum. But chess is a game of concentration and everyone knew what the ultimate goal was, so complying was not too difficult. 

Just after 11.00 am I started my first game against Andrew Watson. I was particularly keen to play well against Andrew because I knew that he had travelled all the way over from Skegness to play me and was a good player and a good organizer. He not only was the captain of the Skegness chess club, but had recently taken on the role of the Lincolnshire County captaincy.  

Also, I was very conscious that when many years ago I played for over 68 hours, on the third day of play I did not win any games at all! So I was curious to know if my technique of leaving and entering my body under control would have kept me more awake and less tired. When, after just over one hour of play, I won my first game, I was very pleased on two counts: my concentration and chess ability had stayed in tact and secondly my technique for refreshing my body had proved to work. I lost the next two games and drew the final one. 

By now the time had reached 2.00 pm and there were only three hours left to play before I would break the record held by the two Norwegian chess players. Between 2.00 pm and 5.00 pm I was playing the brothers Karan and Kanak for the third time. All I can say is thank goodness for their total commitment to this chess marathon. Of course I enjoyed all my games against them. 

Between 5.00 pm and 8.00 pm I was playing Neil Snaith and during this time I broke the World Chess Marathon Record. 

In the three hours of play against Neil we only managed to complete two games, one of which I drew and the other one I lost. Between 5.30 pm and 6.00 pm Anne Dorrian, the Mayor of Boston arrived and she congratulated me on breaking the chess marathon record. 

I cotinued playing until 9.00 pm when I finally decided to stop. Richard very kindly carried all the filming equipment to my car. I had played continuously for over 60 hours.