John Rety, who died on February 3 aged 80, was a chess-loving anarchist poet best known in London's bohemian underworld as the founder of the Torriano meeting house in Kentish Town, which put on poetry readings, exhibitions and political activities.
The son of a theatre director, he was born Reti Janos on December 8 1930 in Budapest. As a child partisan in the second world war he saw his grandmother shot in front of him. After the Germans and then the Russians arrived in 1944 he became separated from his Jewish parents and carried messages for the Resistance. As a playwright in late-1940s Budapest, he was considered dangerous and fled the city just a step ahead of the authorities. Arriving in England, he drifted into Soho, wrote a comic novel, "Supersozzled Nights" (1953), and founded the first underground paper in postwar Britain, Intimate Review. In spite of his work in promotion, editing and writing, he found time to indulge his passion for chess. He managed to be both aggressive and charming all at once and allied this with an unusually cogent ability to spot rising talent.
The son of a theatre director, he was born Reti Janos on December 8 1930 in Budapest. As a child partisan in the second world war he saw his grandmother shot in front of him. After the Germans and then the Russians arrived in 1944 he became separated from his Jewish parents and carried messages for the Resistance. As a playwright in late-1940s Budapest, he was considered dangerous and fled the city just a step ahead of the authorities. Arriving in England, he drifted into Soho, wrote a comic novel, "Supersozzled Nights" (1953), and founded the first underground paper in postwar Britain, Intimate Review. In spite of his work in promotion, editing and writing, he found time to indulge his passion for chess. He managed to be both aggressive and charming all at once and allied this with an unusually cogent ability to spot rising talent.
John Rety, who died on February 3 aged 80, was a chess-loving anarchist poet best known in London's bohemian underworld as the founder of the Torriano meeting house in Kentish Town, which put on poetry readings, exhibitions and political activities.
The son of a theatre director, he was born Reti Janos on December 8 1930 in Budapest. As a child partisan in the second world war he saw his grandmother shot in front of him. After the Germans and then the Russians arrived in 1944 he became separated from his Jewish parents and carried messages for the Resistance. As a playwright in late-1940s Budapest, he was considered dangerous and fled the city just a step ahead of the authorities. Arriving in England, he drifted into Soho, wrote a comic novel, "Supersozzled Nights" (1953), and founded the first underground paper in postwar Britain, Intimate Review. In spite of his work in promotion, editing and writing, he found time to indulge his passion for chess. He managed to be both aggressive and charming all at once and allied this with an unusually cogent ability to spot rising talent.
The son of a theatre director, he was born Reti Janos on December 8 1930 in Budapest. As a child partisan in the second world war he saw his grandmother shot in front of him. After the Germans and then the Russians arrived in 1944 he became separated from his Jewish parents and carried messages for the Resistance. As a playwright in late-1940s Budapest, he was considered dangerous and fled the city just a step ahead of the authorities. Arriving in England, he drifted into Soho, wrote a comic novel, "Supersozzled Nights" (1953), and founded the first underground paper in postwar Britain, Intimate Review. In spite of his work in promotion, editing and writing, he found time to indulge his passion for chess. He managed to be both aggressive and charming all at once and allied this with an unusually cogent ability to spot rising talent.
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