David Le Brun Jones (1923-2023)

[John Saunders]

I have some sad news to share: David Le Brun Jones died last Thursday (18 May) aged 99. He would have turned 100 on 18 November this year.

David Jones attended City of London School and Trinity College, Oxford, where he took part in the unofficial Varsity chess match of 1942, before proceeding to Bletchley Park where he worked on Japanese code-breaking for the last two years of World War Two. After the war he returned to Oxford to complete his degree and took part in the official Varsity matches of 1946 and 1947. He had a very distinguished career as a high-ranking civil servant and was awarded a CB (Companion of the Order of the Bath) in 1975.

Link to a short biography of him on the Varsity biographical file at BritBase: https://www.saund.org.uk/britbase/pgn/v ... #1942jones

Until very recently he still played for Oxford & Cambridge in the London clubs league and was a frequent visitor to Varsity matches where, as a chess historian, I would pump him for anything he could remember of the chess scene in the 1940s. His mind remained sharp as a razor well into his nineties. I recall not many years ago when he saw me at a Varsity match, he came up to me with a view to continuing our conversation from the previous year. But first he had to remind me what it was about because I had forgotten - junior moment! A lovely man, I shall miss him.

[David Sedgwick]

A lovely man, I shall miss him.

As will I and all Varsity Match aficionados. RIP David