Dave Jones

[Graham Breeze]

From a post on FB, we lost Dave on 20th March. Ex committee and magazine editor, his Eskdale Elevation race now has his son in law as RO, next week, pleased to have caught up in person at last year's event. Condolences to his family, a big loss to fell running.

Having never really warmed to Latin at school I have always been slightly in awe of people who also studied Greek - and Dave was one.

In 2001 I submitted a piece to The Fellrunner and Dave, then the Editor, sent it back saying it was too densely argued and should be expanded into two separate articles.

Any aspiring writer should take note of editorial critique and so I complied and my first published piece, Il Campionissimo, was published in June 2001. Since then I have had around 90 published pieces so some might think Dave has a lot to answer for - but there we are.

A few years later Bill Smith had fallen out with Dave (over a missing manuscript) and withdrawn his services (eventually they kissed and made up) so Dave asked me to do a Profile of Scoffer to indicate to Bill that he wasn't irreplaceable. The Profile appeared in February 2006 and I went on to write twelve more Profiles including several for subsequent editors.

Dave was a forbidding presence on the FRA Committee. Sometimes he was just wrong but he was always worth listening to and I liked him a lot. He was a great editor of The Fellrunner (not least because he didn't tinker with my submissions) and he has always had a special place in my heart.

He was the best.