I've just gotten round to transcribing my father's wartime letters 1944-45 - he was plucked from university for war service and became a captain in the Royal Signals and was active in the liberation of Italy; he was 24 years old at the time of writing.
It's not a hill of beans but I thought it worthy of mention here as, at the time crosswords were relatively new, and the 79 year old comments might have some currency today.
He writes to his father
"I concur with your remarks about crosswords. The Listener is too difficult; extreme difficulty is not a merit because it is very easy to compose an impossibly difficult puzzle. I think Torquemada has never been surpassed because there was as much ingenuity in his puzzles as sheer erudition, and he didn’t very often leave you completely despairing of a solution. The Times is always a good staple diet."
Happy Easter everyone,
Matthew