A former Shropshire chess champion has been awarded the MBE for his work in taking chess into prisons.
Shropshire chess king honoured for his prisons work
Carl Portman, who used to live in Telford, said he was deeply honoured and humbled to receive the award from the King for his services to prisoners and prison chess.
Portman, who is the English Chess Federation’s manager for chess in prisons, was a member of the Trench-based Coddon team which won the Shropshire chess league for six consecutive seasons in the 1990s, and he won the county individual championship in 1998. He later moved to Germany but now lives in Oxfordshire, although he occasionally returns to Shropshire to take part in competitions.
Of his voluntary work in prisons he said: "Chess really can help to rehabilitate. Chess really can give the keys to a better life."
Away from chess he is passionate about spiders, and has travelled thousands of miles to explore remote jungles and study tarantulas in their natural habitat.
His life motto is “Don’t complain about the darkness, light a few candles.”
