the League. I had never met him before but knew that he’d started his chess career in Exmouth, and was keen to record his memories. Game as ever, he expressed a willingness to re-join the Exmouth Club and felt the train journey and walk in the dark at each end would be no problem, but then in his mid-80s it was more than anyone could expect of him, and it never materialised.

Betty died in 2001, but Denys stayed on in the house until he became too ill to care for himself. He died just days after his 90th birthday, which he had celebrated with all his family around him.

By involving himself in four different aspects of the game, not even to mention his many other interests, it mightbe said that his talent was spread a little too thinly, and he might have achieved an even higher level if he had concentrated on just one aspect. Yet by limiting himself in any way, he would probably have lost more than he gained. No one can balance that particular equation.

He was true chess pioneer in, first of all, leading Exmouth to early successes, and late in life working at the very frontiers of chess problem composition.

Henry Bernard was one of a number of Devon-born problemists who made a major contribution to the art at a national and international level.

H. D’O Bernard was born on 2nd March 1878, the first child of Arthur Francis and Mary L. Bernard. At that time, his father was 27 and his mother