English Chess Forum

(Apart from JDP who kindly passed these photographs to myself) who would you say are the English players here and the approximate year?

Is JDP James Pratt?

No idea who the players are.

Apropos of nothing in particular, I found:

"James Davidson Pratt, Controller of Chemical Warfare at Porton [...] He was known by his close UK colleagues as JDP" (From Keen as Mustard (Bridget Goodwin, 1998)

Christopher Kreuzer wrote: ↑

Thu Jan 20, 2022 5:26 pm

No idea who the players are.

The player with White might be Michael Franklin, but the board position isn't from a London, Colle or Kings Imdian Attack. There's what looks to be a copy of Informator on the table, which started towards the end of the 1960s. Also they are using a wooden set. Haircuts too suggest the 1960s.

Roger de Coverly wrote: ↑

Thu Jan 20, 2022 5:40 pm

There's what looks to be a copy of Informator on the table, which started towards the end of the 1960s.

It looks to me like a copy of Keres' best games and a newspaper

No, pretty sure that isn't an early Chess Informant (which was for the record first published in 1966)

Roger de Coverly wrote: ↑

Thu Jan 20, 2022 5:40 pm

Haircuts too suggest the 1960s.

Funny, I was placing it in the previous decade on the same basis, though of course it's not as if everything magically changes when the decade changes (and for that matter it can make a difference where as well as when photos like this are taken). That said, if it's Reinfeld's book on Keres' Best Games 1931-1948 a quick and unreliable Google gives a publication date of 1960.

I thought Michael Franklin as well. If the player standing is James Pratt, he looks several years too old for the photo to have been taken in the 1960's, so either it's 1970's or it's not James Pratt.

On the other hand if it's the 1970s then the player of the White pieces would have to be close to forty at least if he were Michael Franklin.

I don't think it's Franklin. The ear looks to be the wrong shape, and the hairline's slightly different.

Can we be sure they're both English? The player of Black looks a lot like Unzicker.

I'd put the date at any time from 1955 to about 1965.

I don't know these people, but to me this photo is redolent of the 50s, not the 60s.

Could the black player be a young Ron Harman (born 1938)? The hair parting is similar. Here's a confirmed pic for comparison. https://www.kingpinchess.net/2014/10/ro ... hess-club/

Leonard Barden wrote: ↑

Thu Jan 20, 2022 10:35 pm

Could the black player be a young Ron Harman (born 1938)? The hair parting is similar. Here's a confirmed pic for comparison. https://www.kingpinchess.net/2014/10/ro ... hess-club/

Most excellent and correct.

Ronald FA Harman who I recall resigning as Secretary of Cavendish Chess Club even when he was not Secretary!

The other two?

"Ron Harman"

I had got as far as thinking, "I've played him", but was nowhere near a name.

While you are considering the above here is another English player to identify:

Hoping not to be committing an embarrassing faux pas - Stewart Reuben?