Prodigious Talents

Dear David - As a good friend of his elder brother Rich, I was lucky enough to have spent several long evenings with Jim over the past few years.

Whilst my head, kidneys and wallet always seemed to regret it the morning after, there were very few moments when he wasn't telling us all some outrageous story of what he'd recently been up to, giving first-hand advice (and demonstrations) on how best to imbibe some near-toxic (and often flaming) shot of alcohol, or simply making us laugh. Most often, it was all three at once.

Attending a funeral is never a happy event, but I was lucky enough - if you see what I mean - to have been there on Friday, and to hear the various tributes from his friends and family. Yours, in particular, rang especially true and I just wanted to echo that in addition to his role as the 'life and soul', he was always genuinely interested to hear what everyone else had been up to - and with a rare ability to remember nearly all of what we'd told him last time we'd met :
something all the more impressive given the state in which we usually ended up.

I last bumped into Jim in the 'liquid' department of our local supermarket - he was probably 'food shopping' - but my clearest memory is of last New Year's Eve, in 2005, when he joined us for a meal at 'Etc' in Harborne. As you will see from the attached photograph, he dressed for the occasion, in his finest crumpled rugby shirt, and excused his late arrival (at about 8pm) on the basis that he 'had only just got up'. Admittedly, he was feeling a bit under the weather, but no-one batted an eyelid when they heard that. Despite his touch of 'flu, he proceeded to do what he did best - drink, lead several bouts of supreme idiocy, and ensure that we all had to rely on photographic evidence the next day to convince ourselves that we were actually there.

We'll all miss him.

Matt Shaw

Posted on behalf of Matt Shaw