We are very sorry to report the passing of Stefano Bruzzi on January 30th 2022.

Born in Florence, Italy, on February 8th 1935, Stef enjoyed the regional cooking. The cuisine of his home region (he was fiercely Tuscan) was close to his heart and he was somewhat suscpicious of dishes from other Italian regions!

A learned man, Stef's PhD thesis dealt with maximising the energy extracted from rocket fuel. He was literally a rocket scientist! Perhaps as a result of, or as a reaction to that, he later became a member of the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament.

Stef's professional life was driven by his training in chemical engineering and he worked for several companies in the cryogenics sector, including BOC. One company in Germany still uses a turbine design exactly as Stef produced it many years ago.

Aside from his scientific and engineering endeavours Stef enjoyed the arts as well as being a polyglot. His languages included Italian, English, French, German and Russian. The latter we speculate was learned in order to read Russian chess magazines, which were the state of the art in the 1960s and 1970s when he was at his peak.

However, possibly his greatest love may have been chess. He played in the Italian Championships during(!) his honeymoon in 1960. Not many of us could have got away with that!

Stef was a highly respected and valued friend and member of our club. His endgame skills and help with analysing adjourned positions were second to none. He had a special interest in the McCutcheon variation of the classical French defence.

As a one time member of the Italian team Stef would have been the best amongst us when in his pomp. What a great achievement to represent his country!

Stef will be greatly missed. We extend our condolences to Ursula, Stella, Josh and the rest of his family and friends.