His mother moved to a village near Cambridge and he became acquainted with Henry Baker, Lowndean Professor of Astronomy and Geometry.
Du Val's early work before becoming a research student was on relativity, including a paper on the De Sitter model of the universe and Grassmann's tensor calculus.
During that time he travelled extensively, visiting Rome and working with Federigo Enriques, then in 1934 Princeton University, where he attended lectures by James W. Alexander, Luther P. Eisenhart, Solomon Lefschetz, Oswald Veblen, Joseph Wedderburn, and Hermann Weyl.
For example, in Manchester during the war he was remembered as a cloaked figure striding the parapets, as he carried out his duties as a fire warden.
He was also known for startling the travelling public by carrying around a large string bag filled with garishly coloured stellated icosahedra.