Patrick Jourdain

[2] According to the English Bridge Union's death notice: "Ever the dedicated journalist, he penned his own obituary to ensure that the media would have their copy in timely fashion.

He was educated at St Edward's School, Oxford and Peterhouse, Cambridge, where he obtained a degree in Physics and Natural Sciences.

The selectors had undertaken that the winners would be given a match in the Camrose Trophy, the competition for the constituent countries of the United Kingdom.

He therefore made his international debut in a match against Northern Ireland played in Belfast in early 1966, aged 23 and the youngest ever player for Wales.

[1] In 1982 he was appointed editor of the International Bridge Press Association (IBPA)’s bulletin, a post he held for twenty years.

[2] In the same year he became understudy to G. C. H. Fox, then the Daily Telegraph's bridge correspondent, reporting from each subsequent World and European Championship.

In 1999 Tony Haworth was found guilty of cheating by the Welsh Bridge Union (WBU) and suspended for ten years.

In addition to writing the story, he was a key figure in Haworth's exposure, having spent months gathering evidence.

At the prize-giving banquet he spotted that a player, Disa Eythorsdottir, was missing when the American women's team went up to receive their medals.

Putting two and two together, he found and spoke to the missing player, who told him that she had been stripped of her medal for refusing to take the drugs test, and asked him to make the matter public.

“When I told you to make my treatment public,” she said, “I did not expect the whole world to know!”[2] At that 2002 event he had the opportunity to play against Bill Gates.