JPR WILLIAMS 1949-2024 | STEVE JAMES
‘JPR Williams had sixth sense for danger, which he often sought out’
Steve James salutes a rugby legend, who combined a dazzling sporting career with his working life as a surgeon
The Times
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Narrated by Steve James
‘I used to say that I spent half my life breaking bones on the rugby field, then the other half putting them back together in the operating theatre.” So wrote JPR Williams in his autobiography, encapsulating in a few short words the very essence of most of his remarkable life.
John Peter Rhys Williams — forever called JPR once another John Williams, the wing JJ, joined him in the Wales side — was a giant of a fearless full back for Wales and the British & Irish Lions, as well, of course, for his hometown club of Bridgend, who sadly announced his passing on social media at the age of 74, and for London Welsh while studying at St Mary’s Hospital Medical School in London
