REFLECTIONS
A speech at Jim’s Thanksgiving Service
24 March 2006
When Jim gave his best man’s address at my wedding, he started by saying that a good speech should be like a woman’s dress; long enough to cover the subject but short enough to remain interesting. I will endeavor to follow his lead.
Today is our chance to say thank you for a very special person in all our lives, whom God granted but half a life. We will all feel angry and cheated that Jim was taken from us so young, yet we must learn to give thanks that he came along at all. Only now that he is gone, and I look around me, do I truly understand what we have lost and how difficult it will be without him.
James was a man who touched many people. He threw himself wholeheartedly into life and moved in many circles. His passion and energy were visible in his work, his professional life, his dramatic performances, his sporting endeavours and of course his prodigious drinking talents.
We have truly been robbed of a man in his prime, coming to terms with himself, his affairs and his place in the world. He was, I know, very happy at Stuart Hodge – a wonderful team with a family atmosphere. He was active in the Birmingham Trainee Solicitors Society as “Philosophus”; buttering cultural muffins from Walsall to Warsaw. And at the Crescent Theatre in Brindley Place, where he was a regular, who can forget the site of Jim stripping off in “a Girl’s Night Out”? Well I, for one, am trying, believe me!
James’ school friends may remember that his first lead in Shakespeare was as Petruchio in Taming of the Shrew. In many ways, Jim was Petruchio; a man of sport and good humour, who liked to surround himself with witty, challenging people for a drink or a fiery argument. Kind hearted and generous, he was a true friend to many. Over the last few weeks, I have been astonished at how many people have said to me that Jim’s advice (drunken or otherwise) played a major part in pivotal decisions in their life or picked them up when they were at their lowest ebb.
Of course, Petruchio was also stubborn, disorganised and unpredictable – just like Jim. Many of you will have wondered how James died. Well, it seems that he was in the process of tidying his flat at the time and my theory is that the shock of this simply finished him off. Perhaps we will never know. It is one of the greatest tragedies that Jim, unlike Petruchio, never did get to meet his Katherine. A woman strong enough to stand up to him and smooth off his rough edges. What a sister-in-law she would have been. And who would have been taming who?
Jim was a big man, not just in height but in heart and character. One of life’s true gentlemen. From the moment he entered the room, slapped you on the back and cheerily greeted you with a “hello chief” he was at the very centre of all that was fun and mischief. And yet Jim achieved in that something which few master. For he was always much more interested in others than in himself. He had a way of being and of listening that would make you feel the most important person in the room. This was his most special quality and that which will be most sorely missed.
In many ways, Jim shared the finest qualities of my mother, who’s long illness and death James witnessed and bore with such fortitude, just as she did. He inherited her sense of fun, her mischief and her willingness to listen and empathise with others.
To me, James was always my younger brother. One of my earliest – and happiest – memories was holding him in my arms as a baby – and what a cute baby he was. I have always wanted to protect him and foster him; have him learn from my mistakes and to share in his triumphs. Richard and I have watched him grow up and seek out his own path with pleasure and with pride.
To my father and grandfather, he was the prodigal son. Always a worry but always welcomed and loved. The fatted calf was always ready on Sunday lunchtime, whether or not Jim was always there to eat it. But above all else, he will be remembered by the family not as a son or a brother, but as Uncle Jimmy. It was with his nephew and nieces that Jim was at his kind and generous best. They will miss his love and guidance more than anyone.
In many ways, Jim’s life was really only just beginning. At times, I simply refuse to believe he is gone. He seems to be only in the next room, ready to enter at any moment with a song, a soliloquy or a story. I can hear his voice in my head and feel his massive hand shaking mine.
As Jim boards that Big Green Drunken Bus to the sky, I’d like to ask you to join us after this service for a drink. Let this first drink be one of many in his memory. Lay out an extra place at your table and in your heart for my brother and our dear friend, James Viney. Pour him a pint and let his presence fill the room once more. As long as you remember him, all that he was will live on in you.
Jim, as I have said, was my best man. And so he will remain, the very best of men.
