Hugh Devin - Don Goodwin 4-17-20

Canadian Don Goodwin was one of the most interesting people I met in connection with the game of draughts. I was visiting with some of my cousins in Ontario,

Canada during 1987 when I discovered Don lived a mere 10 minutes drive away. I had been in correspondence with him for several years before that as Don was a book
dealer (draughts) and I had made several purchases from him when trying to build up a small library of books.

Don picked me up at my cousin’s and brought me to his family home where we spend the afternoon talking checker books. I was to learn that his profession was a
bookbinder and he had worked for the same book company for his entire adult working life. He loved the game of checkers and he played a good game too.

Don loved checker books. In fact, I’d say I never met with anyone who was so passionate about them. If a checker player he knew of died, he would write to the
family expressing his condolences and offer to purchase any checker books they might have had. It didn’t matter much what condition they might be in as he’d
work his magic on them. Don would strip a book down, replace any torn or missing pages, and rebind it as new, then replace the original covers back on it.
The book would be restored to near mint condition, and Don would sell it on to someone looking for that item.

His work was amazing. He told me if he had a book or magazine from, say 1885, with a page or pages missing, he would source the exact paper that the book was
printed with - paper from 1885 of the same size and quality, a perfect match. He would photocopy print the page from another copy of the book and insert it into the
damaged copy and rebind. He said it was impossible to tell what page was replaced when he had finished it. In this way he lovingly restored thousands of checker books
and kept them in circulation when otherwise they might be thrown away.

Don also reprinted books many of which were rare and out of print for many years. When he took me down to his basement, I felt like a kid in a candy store.
There were thousands upon thousands of books there, lined out on storage shelving. If you wanted a copy of “Ryan’s Encyclopaedia” he would have 100 copies!
If you wanted a “Lee’s Guide” or Fortman’s “Basic Checkers” there were a hundred copies of each of these too. In fact he challenged me to name any book I could

possibly think of, whether I’d ever seen it or not, and on ever occasion he would hand it to me! He had originals of Payne’s 1756 book (both editions) that I got
to look through, but he told me they were sold to a collector from California who was flying up that weekend to personally collect them.

Don and his wife Jean brought me out for dinner that evening, after which we returned to his home where I purchased about 15 books from him. He threw in
another 5-6 books I didn’t have, and he drove me back to my cousins that night. Don’s wife Jean told me she was born in Northern Ireland, and that her family
had emigrated to Canada while she was about 3 yrs old. It was a most wonderful and unusual day.

P.S. After Don’s death his library of draughts books was so large that no-one could afford to buy them in one lot.

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