Lost in the Sandpit — Daily puzzle for 2026-09-30

Easy — logic-grid deduction puzzle

Six pupils took their turns at the long jump one after another on a September sports day in 1957, each after a different number of practice jumps.

It was the first week of the school year in Leeds, September 1957, and the school held its sports day under a warm late-summer sun. The sycamores round the field were just turning yellow, and the pupils wore vests and plimsolls. Six pupils reached the long-jump final. The run-up was a single narrow strip, so they jumped one at a time, in turn. Over the summer holidays, each had made a different number of practice jumps. The games master kept a neighbour tally for every pupil: the practice jumps of the pupil who jumped just before and the pupil who jumped just after, added together. The pupils at the two ends of the order had only one neighbour, so their tally was that one pupil's practice jumps. Then a gust snatched the games master's list off the bench and dropped it in the sandpit, and the rake went straight over it. Now the order had to be worked out again.

Clues

  1. Only one of these was true: the pupil with 34 practice jumps took the fourth turn; Felix had made 7 practice jumps; Clive took the fifth turn.
  2. The first turn went to the pupil who had made 38 practice jumps.
  3. Of Felix and Duncan, one had made 15 practice jumps and the other took the fourth turn.
  4. Felix, the pupil on the fourth turn and the pupil with 38 practice jumps were three different people.
  5. Whoever jumped on the sixth turn had not made 4 practice jumps.
  6. Eddie's neighbour tally came to 15 practice jumps.
  7. Two of these three were true, and the third was not: Clive had made 18 practice jumps; Archie had made 7; the pupil with 18 took the first turn.
  8. Either the pupil with 18 practice jumps took the third turn, or that pupil took the first turn.

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