"Mr Jack Danby comes from a bridge playing family, and learned to play in his teens. He found it a great relaxation during the war, when he served as a pilot in the RAF. (He does not say much about this, but reading between the lines, I gather he saw his fair share of action). He met his wife Cynthia at a bridge club in South Birmingham - as he says, the game has its dangers.
In November 1947, Jack and Cynthia Danby moved to the Isle of Wight, having bought Craigmore Court Hotel in Shanklin, and discovered very little bridge being played on the Island. Jack determined to put this matter right, and formed the Craigmore bridge club, affiliated to the EBU, of course, in 1948. He put in a great deal of work to get it under way, teaching, advertising, visiting golf clubs, yacht clubs etc.
Jack introduced duplicate bridge to the Island in the early 1950s, and started the annual IoW championships - pairs, teams-of-four, and individual, also the IoW league. All these events are running to this day. He was a founder member of Shanklin bridge club which came into existence when Jack and Cynthia sold their hotel and retired.
After his retirement (retirement?), Jack was very active in the formation of an IoW District Bridge Association as part of the then Southern Counties Association, and now the Hampshire and Isle of Wight CBA. He is as fully committed to bridge as ever.
One of the problems that the District Association has is the maintainance (sic) of contact with our mainland colleagues in Hampshire. (As an aside, may I say that the officers and members of the County Association are extremely helpful, but the Solent does tend to get in the way.) Jack twisted the arm of Sealink (UK) Ltd for sponsorship, and last year, there came into existence the Bridge Across The Solent or BATS trophy. This, the mini-est of bridge cruises, was a tremendous success. It is a pairs competition played on a Sealink ferry whilst it travels to and fro from the Island to Portsmouth, with half the pairs from the Island, and half from the mainland. Sealink presented a trophy for an annual competition, made from the wood of the Mary Rose. We are looking forward to the re-run this October.
Jack is presently working on ideas for more events that can be run in conjunction with mainland players. There is no doubt that bridge on the Isle of Wight would be in a sorry state were it not for Jack's efforts over the past 38 years, and I respectfully suggest that you will have to look very long and very hard to find someone more deserving of the EBU award for service than Jack Danby."
Dimmie Fleming Award citation, 1985