A picture of him playing at Hastings 1935 comes to us from <ILN, 5 January 1935-01-05 p21> (by way of Urcan by way of Edward Winter (CN #7489)):

http://www.chesshistory.com/winter/... (be sure to look at the enlarged version).

“Among the boys, a considerable interest was shown to Rupert Cross, a lad of 16, who is being educated at the Worcester College for the Blind, and uses a special chess board of his own in order to follow the moves of the games. On this board, the black men have rounded tops and the white pieces pointed tops. By gently running his fingers over the board, Cross is evidently able to carry a picture of the position of the men in his head. He has taken part in every congress so far, and, though he has not secured the top positions, he is a clever and promising player.”>

<http://www.braillechess.org.uk/hall...>

What an interesting article about this blind player.

Excerpt:

<In 1939 Cross was admitted a solicitor and during the Second World War he practiced in London, mainly in family law.

After the war he turned his mind to law teaching. In 1945 he became a full-time lecturer at the Law Society School of law. He had a talent for lecturing, in which he combined great lucidity with a keen sense of the limitations of his audience. In 1946 he began to help with the law teaching at Magdalen College, Oxford.

He became an excellent tutor, and was a fellow of the college from 1948 to 1964.

Though forthright and outspoken, he had a sensitive feeling for the needs of his pupils, several of whom attained high office, and possessed an impressive mastery of many branches of law which was aided by an almost infallible memory.

With the help of his wife, his secretaries, and books in Braille he read widely and soon began to publish. An elementary but popular Introduction to Criminal Law, written with P. Asterley Jones in 1948, made him known to a wide circle of lawyers; but it was Evidence, published in 1958, that established his reputation in Britain and the Commonwealth as one of the leading academic lawyers of the day.

He enjoyed life immensely, though he would remark ironically that it was bearable only as long as he knew where the next bottle of champagne was coming from.

With his zest for wine, food, gossip, chess, and long walks one could easily overlook his regular routine and steady output.>