'Boring career' motivated Scrabble winner to play
BBCA 92-year-old Scrabble champion credits her "boring career" with motivating her to find a rewarding hobby.
Diana Beasley, from Exeter, Devon, said work as a shorthand typist "was unfulfilling" and having "been slow at everything" she did, found it a struggle to keep up.
She channelled her energies into interests that she found "mentally stimulating", and found she "liked words" and "was good at spelling".
Nearly 50 years after starting the Exeter Scrabble Club, Diana still competes in national tournaments and is enjoying the glory of success.
Diana said she left school in 1948 aged 15 and took a job as a shorthand typist.
She said: "I did find it a bit boring. It was so frustrating, I kept making mistakes and having to correct them. I wish I could have typed more accurately."
She said she "would have liked to have done something creative" and when she discovered Scrabble she "immediately took to it and thought this is fun".
She said while her sister lived until she was 99, she was now the "last survivor" in her family and still lived in the home where she grew up in Alphington.
Diana said: "I'd like to make it to 100. I might get everything done then... [there is] so much I want to do I haven't yet done."
Diana said she intended to spend £200 she won in a recent win in the B Division of the UK Scrabble Open national tournament on travel and accommodation for her next competition in Oxford in August.
She said success at Scrabble was a mixture of luck and skill.
"It was largely luck in the beginning. I hadn't learnt much about tactics then.
"That comes with experience, going to lots of tournaments and playing other people."
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