It’s no puzzle why the crossword is marking its 100th year in The Observer

After Thursday’s crossword centenary celebration at The Observer’s newsroom, I got talking to David Oliver. He had driven 45 minutes to the station, taken a three-hour train to London and would do the same journey back, all for one evening. A grandfather who had been solving the Azed crossword for years, he told me he had come to meet Jonathan Crowther, the setter behind Azed, and ask him one question. What could it be? Something about clue construction? A favourite puzzle?

His question for Jonathan was: “Can I shake your hand?”

I was quietly floored. He had travelled all that way to say thank you, because solving Jonathan’s puzzles had meant that much to him. The people David had been sitting with during the event, people who had been strangers at the start of the evening, made sure the moment was captured in a photograph and shared with him.

Even if you have never solved a cryptic crossword in your life, I think that story tells you something about what puzzles mean to people.

This week marks 100 years since the first crossword appeared in The Observer. Only three setters have held the principal position. The first, Torquemada, invented the cryptic crossword. The second, Ximenes, wrote the rules that setters still follow today. The third, Jonathan Crowther, has been setting the Azed puzzle for more than 52 years – longer than his two predecessors combined.

I am 36 years old and The Observer’s first dedicated Puzzles Editor. I almost certainly will not be in the job when this crossword turns 150. So when I stood up on Thursday to host our centenary Q&A, I felt the weight of that.

The evening began with Jonathan and me on stage together before he took his seat in the front row, miked up, while I hosted a panel discussion with Alan Connor, crossword editor at the Guardian and setter of The Observer’s own Everyman puzzle; Ste Curran, the game designer behind Mindset who sets puzzles under the name Etruscan; Blythe Walker-Sidthrop, the designer behind the Observers Needed front page every week; and Colin Thomas, known as Gemelo, who sets the barred crossword alongside Azed. Jonathan joined the conversation from the audience throughout. We premiered a short film about Azed and the community of solvers around him. We ran out of time before we ran out of questions.

One exchange in particular has stayed with me. The panel was asked whether AI has a role in crossword compilation. Ste Curran’s answer was immediate: a puzzle is an interaction between one person and another, the compiler and the solver. You wrestle with it, mutter over it, maybe swear at it under your breath, until suddenly it clicks. That is the relationship. AI can help with the coding of a game, with how you make something playable, but a truly engaging puzzle lives in the exchange between the person who sets it and the person who solves it. You could feel the room arrive at that thought together. It was one of those moments when everyone quietly recognises something they already knew.

This weekend’s Observer includes an eight-page centenary supplement, and it is worth picking up whether you are a lifelong solver or have never attempted a crossword. Inside you will find a jumbo Everyman puzzle, a solver personality quiz, three brand-new puzzle types, and a seek-and-find illustration with hidden clues written specially for the occasion. We have launched a new digital puzzles platform, and for the first time, our Big Apple Sudoku is available to play online.

The Observer’s crossword has survived wars, paper shortages and a century of upheaval without missing a week. This centenary year is our chance to celebrate that, not quietly among the people who already know, but with everyone. If you have ever been curious about puzzles, this is the week for you to try one.

We are just getting started.

The centenary supplement is in this weekend’s Observer. To join the puzzle community, sign up for the Puzzle Edit newsletter at observer.co.uk/newsletters.

Photographs by Antonio Olmos, Minna Pang