2012 London to London

his parents he held, from an early age,
strong left-wing political views and as
soon as he was old enough, he became
an active member of the British Socialist
Party, the Labour Party and then, in the
1930s, the British Communist Party.
He was educated at Westminster School
and went on to study Zoology first at
the Royal College of Science and later at
Cambridge University, where he gained
an honours degree in the subject. He
had hoped originally to pursue a career
as a scientist; as a young graduate he
took part in an expedition to a remote
part of the Caucasus to find and bring
back specimens of a primitive type of
mole that was thought to be facing extinction.
However, it was his other passion, films
that soon claimed his interest and he
spent some 40 years in the industry both
in England and in Hollywood, working
variously as a screenwriter, editor and
producer. He was a producer or associate
producer for several of Alfred Hitchcock’s
early films, such as The Man Who
Knew Too Much and The Thirty-Nine
Steps; his close friends included Charles
Chaplin and Sergei Eisenstein.
In 1925 he was a founder member of
the London Film Society and he later
worked for a time as a film reviewer for
The Observer. During World War Two
he was a reporter for the Communist
newspaper, the Daily Worker and, it has
since been alleged, that while in this
post he obtained privileged access to
classified information which he passed
to the U.S.S.R.
Although he is remembered most for his
table tennis activities, as a young man
he was an enthusiastic participant in several
other sports including soccer, lawn
tennis and cricket; by his own account
he was a competent but not outstanding
performer in most of them. Perhaps
realising his limitations he went on to
become a qualified umpire for lawn
tennis and cricket and he believed that
this was invaluable experience when he
came to drafting practical and enforceable
rules for table tennis.
Meanwhile, whilst at university he set
up the Cambridge University Table
Tennis Club, initially because having
had some experience at the game he
thought - wrongly, as it proved - that
this was one sport where he would be
able to excel against beginners.
Not discouraged, he continued to promote
table tennis at the university with
the strong support of a senior member
of the academic staff, F. B. Kipping,
whose sister Florence (Scott) became
the first English Open women’s singles
champion. He arranged matches against
other clubs that were starting and in his
book he tells of their first contest with
the equivalent club at Oxford University.
The six members of each team played
each of the six members of the opposing
team and Cambridge won the match 31-
5, with Ivor being the only loser for his
side. However, before this he had made
contact with the flourishing All-England
Club, becoming a member in 1922; this
brought him to the notice of the officers
of the newly revived Ping Pong Association.
A first test of his value to the organisation
came later in 1922. He recounts in
his autobiography The Youngest Son,
“All went swimmingly until our committee,
endorsing applications to hold
tournaments, approved one that was
to be held without specifying equip-
London, the Home of Table Tennis
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