This is taken from The Guardian:

Richard Jones
by Herbert Williams
Thursday 29 September 2011 17.55 BST

My friend Richard Jones, who has died aged 84, was an author and journalist. His first novel, The Age of Wonder, revolving around an elderly woman's decision to publish the papers and diaries left by her late husband, appeared in 1967. Its American edition was retitled The Three Suitors. He wrote four more novels, The Toy Crusaders (1968, retitled Supper with the Borgias in America), A Way Out, The Tower Is Everywhere and Living in the 25th Hour. His reputation was such that he became a visiting lecturer at Stanford University in California.

Richard, the son of a dairyman, was born in Aberystwyth and attended Ardwyn grammar school in the town, where he excelled at French. Instead of going on to university, however, he left school at 16 to work for the planning department in Croydon, south London. When he reached the age of military service in 1944, he was drafted into the Nottinghamshire coalfield as a Bevin boy.

He married Maria (Moussia) Bavenko, a French woman of Russian descent, in 1955, by which time he had taken up journalism as a career. After reporting for the Cambrian News in Aberystwyth (I first came to know Richard well while working in the newsroom with him there) and the South Wales Echo in Cardiff, he joined the BBC to become its correspondent in Beirut. He then moved to London as a bulletin editor for the BBC's World Service in Bush House. He remained with the corporation until his retirement.

The death of his 12-year-old daughter, Natalie, in a road accident in 1976 had a devastating effect on Richard, and he came to see fiction writing as an irrelevance. He was, however, highly supportive of friends who pursued writing careers.

Always keenly interested in politics and public affairs, he made a mark as an outspoken independent member of Cardiganshire council in the 1950s, and in recent years had backed the Liberal Democrats, campaigning for the party in Battersea, south London.

Richard was a man of great personal warmth and, until diagnosed with cancer, seemingly tireless energy. He is survived by his wife and his daughter Katherine.