Wendy Law, the crossword setter who compiled the Guardian's weekly quiptic puzzle under the pseudonym Hectence, has died aged 65 of cancer. She was known for fair, accessible clues that drew in nervous solvers.
The quiptic crossword is billed as the "puzzle for beginners and those in a hurry", avoiding mind-bending tricks and idiosyncratic conventions. Creating tractable puzzles is more challenging than regular cryptics, as keeping things ostensibly simple requires extra skill.
Early life and career
Wendy was born in Manchester to Derek Sherwin, a chemist, and Pat (nee Smethurst). As an only child, she created imaginary companions Potence and Hectence. The family moved to Melton Mowbray in Leicestershire, where her devotion to pork pies began.
She studied English and Italian at Leeds University after switching from history of art, graduating in 1982. There she met future husband Derek Law, who was impressed by her owning a portable television. They solved crosswords from the Leeds Student newspaper and married in 1982, having two daughters, Donna and Robyn.
Crossword setting
Wendy first posted sample puzzles to Guardian crossword editor Hugh Stephenson in 1998. Receiving a reply that the paper would "keep it on file", she resigned herself to polite rejection. A year later, she learned the paper was launching a new weekly puzzle with her first as the fourth in the series.
She compiled 217 puzzles over 27 years, becoming the most prolific quiptic setter and the only one to appear every year. She was known for pangrams—grids containing every letter of the alphabet—a self-imposed challenge she sometimes regretted. From 2019 she also set for the Financial Times under the name Zamorca, from the Bosnian for "guinea pig".
Life and passions
From 1994 Wendy worked for South Cambridgeshire district council in education finance, later training as a librarian and working at Willingham village library from 1999. "I finally ended up where I should have started," she reflected. "In libraries."
She contributed to talking books services for visually impaired residents and became district supervisor, driving between libraries in her Mazda MX-5 called "the Precious". Following a cancer diagnosis in 2019, she retired but remained a Friend of Willingham Library.
Guinea pigs were a lifelong passion; she looked after more than 30. When visiting a Peruvian restaurant with guinea pigs on the menu, she showed the waiter pictures of her pets. In a 2021 interview, she said: "Lots of people have daughters, it's far more interesting to have guinea pigs."
Legacy
Wendy was proud of being one of the small minority of female setters. At a 2001 Guardian party for setter Araucaria's 80th birthday, she was the only figure not dressed in a suit. As a feminist, when told by her bank as a newlywed that she could not retain "Ms" in a joint account, she escalated the matter to the manager.
She set puzzles in a custom-built green garden shed, interspersed with bird-watching: "They don't know I'm there and come really close." She played Scrabble at the library but insisted on a different game due to her unfair advantage; the group preferred Scrabble and invariably lost.
Her editor from 2024 said: "I looked forward to every exchange with Wendy because her clues were a pleasure to discuss and because she was a delightful person to discuss them with." She is survived by her husband and daughters.
