The "Chequerboard" title was stated to have been taken from Quatrain XLIX of Edward FitzGerald's first published translation of the "Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyam" (1859):
'Tis all a chequerboard of Night and Days/Where Destiny with Men for Pieces plays/Hither and thither moves, and mates, and slays/And one by one back in the Closet lays'.
'Tis all a chequerboard of Night and Days/Where Destiny with Men for Pieces plays/Hither and thither moves, and mates, and slays/And one by one back in the Closet lays'.
The series was initially modelled on the BBC's Man Alive (1965), several of 'Chequerboard's' original programme makers having either worked on 'Man Alive' or been working in England when the BBC series began.