English Chess Forum

I understand that David passed away today, 6th September, at Kings Mill Hospital, Sutton-in-Ashfield.

I'll add more in due course.

David's wife has posted some information on his Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/david.levens.39

I am very sorry to learn of David's passing. I have attached this photograph taken during the 100th British Chess Championships in Torquay from July 28th to August 10th 2013.

I met David several times and he was a joy to discuss chess and especially junior chess with. Whilst I was IT Manager at British Chess Magazine (2011 - 2015) David was brought on board to edit a new venture called "Junior British Chess Magazine" (JBCM) which he put an enormous amount of time and energy into which ran to five issues. He was unpaid but was not expecting that when he started.

I will attempt to dig out the back issues of JBCM for you and post them here for the nation.

Sorry to hear the news about David he always seemed a very down to earth, genuine and likeable person. For anyone that hasn't read it, his candidacy statement when he stood for director of junior chess is an interesting read https://www.englishchess.org.uk/wp-cont ... ddress.pdf

From that candidacy statement:

David Levens wrote:I have completed 22 marathons with a personal best time of 2 hours 43 minutes. Twice I have run the Nottingham Marathon whilst playing chess against several county juniors by mobile phone. These efforts also raised a lot of money for charity and gained chess much needed publicity in Notts. At the age of 70 I cycled from Lands End to John O’Groats with my eldest son and raised £3,000 for The Leprosy Mission.

That is very impressive.

Many don't have access to Facebook. Can all or parts of what his wife posted be reproduced here (with permission)? Maybe the chess bits? Maybe an obituary/tribute will appear from Nottingham Chess Club in due course (have not checked)?

Did he succeed in the bid for election as Director of Junior Chess? I see he was BCF Marketing Director (what years?) and looking at past forum threads, he was also ECF Manager of Coaches (I should look up the years).

EDIT: Sorry, I see Neil Graham said in the first post "I'll add more in due course." (need to be patient!)

Condolences to his family and friends.

Here is David Levens at Wright Robinson College, Manchester on July 9th 2016. The Northern Giga Final is part of the Delancey UK Schools Chess Challenge. John Upham Photography

Here is the first issue of Junior British Chess Magazine, #1, October 2013, edited by David Levens

and here is the pdf of the magazine itself

The second issue of Junior British Chess Magazine was published in December 2013:

and here is the full pdf of issue #2:

The third issue of Junior British Chess Magazine (edited by David Levens) was published in February 2014:

and here is the full pdf of the third issue of Junior British Chess Magazine which was published in February 2014



edit: I was hoping to put the pdf here but the software complained that the file was too large at 2,567 KB. There is no straightforward way to shrink it.

At least I tried!

Perhaps Carl could assist?

John Upham wrote: ↑

Fri Sep 12, 2025 2:13 pm

and here is the full pdf of the third issue of Junior British Chess Magazine which was published in February 2014



edit: I was hoping to put the pdf here but the software complained that the file was too large at 2,567 KB. There is no straightforward way to shrink it.

At least I tried!

Perhaps Carl could assist?

Have you tired https://www.ilovepdf.com/ as the extreme compression with the previous edition compressed to half the size and the normal compression from 1.9mb to 1.3mb

Time for these mags to be given their own thread?