Fifty years of The Spectator crossword

During the early spring of 1971, a package of eighteen unsolicited crosswords arrived in the post at the Spectator’s offices in Goodge Street. These puzzles were compiled by Jac who had already established himself during the 1960s as a challenging and inventive setter for the Listener series. The name John Adelmare Caesar hid behind the pseudonym Jac who had recently retired from the post of Town Clerk for Rochdale, it is believed.

JAC’s first puzzle for the Spectator appeared in the magazine exactly fifty years ago today. In an accompanying editorial on July 3^rd 1971, it was claimed that the series aimed to be “the most sophisticated published anywhere”. For ten years Jac presented a weekly puzzle, the vast majority of which included a set of unclued thematic solutions which were referred to cryptically in the puzzle’s title. His first crossword, entitled “To Hell with it” was on the theme of the wines of Burgundy.