Goodbye to a good friend in The View from the Terrace

On Sunday we arrived home after a week’s holiday in Cornwall. We had a great time with glorious weather, the best week of the summer, sunshine every day.

While I was there I received some sad news. A good friend had passed away. I have known Jim since I was 10 and he was 21. He moved into my great aunt’s house in Shrewsbury as a lodger and a little while later he married Margaret. They rented half of Auntie’s house which was just across the road from our pub. Margaret was from Plymouth and she missed her family. Mum became a sort of surragate mum to her and I think maybe Dad had some paternal feelings towards Jim too. They became good friends. When Auntie died and left the house to Dad they bought it. Shortly after that we left the pub and moved to the other side of town. Jim and Margaret used to come over regularly.

They desperately wanted a family but sadly Margaret was unable to carry babies to term. She lost four during those first 3 years.
After we left Shrewsbury to live in Sussex they came to stay with us. Then, when Dad died a year later we stayed with them for a week in Shrewsbury while sorting out Dad’s affairs as he hadn’t had time to change his solicitor. It was at about this time that Jim had decided to train as a prison officer as his job as a stone mason didn’t pay well.

When I was 16 I stayed with them for a week. They had finally decided to give up on having their own children after losing yet another baby, this one, a son, had been born alive but lived only 2 days. I think today Margaret’s condition could have been managed and her babies would have been saved but there was no more to be done then. They had decided to adopt and while I stayed there I was honoured to sleep in the room that was being prepared for thier new child. Jeanette arrived a few weeks later.

Eventually Jim and Margaret moved to Plymouth to be near Margaret’s family and Jim went to work at Dartmoor prison. Mum and I went to stay with them and met their daughter.

After I married and had my first child they invited us down so that they could see the baby. I remember their daughter Jeanette baby sitting while Jim and Margaret took us to the prison officer’s mess for a meal. We were actually served by a prisoner! On another day Jim drove us to Looe in Cornwall. I had only been to Cornwall once before on a rainy day trip from a Devon holiday park and I hadn’t been impressed. But on this sunny day in Looe I fell in love with the county. We decided to drive to St Agnes to visit some elderly friends of my mum’s and that was how I discovered what is my favourite Cornish village.

We holidayed in Cornwall many times after that, always spending a day with Margaret and Jim. Once he gave us some fish he had caught to take home for dinner. On our last visit Margaret was ill. She had always suffered with her kidneys and now was on a form of dialysis and waiting for a transplant.

Sadly, The next year we received the sad news that Margaret had died shortly after the transplant. A year later Jim decided to emigrate to Australia. His sister and her family were there and he had wanted to go to join them for some time. Within a year of going he met Pauline and they married. When Jim was 60 and Pauline nearly 20 years younger their twins were born, a boy and a girl. Jim finally had his own family. Jeanette and her husband and child joined them a few years later.

It was funny that I heard the news of Jim’s death while in Cornwall. We had been speaking of him and the places he showed us. We may never have found St Agnes if we hadn’t stayed with him and Margaret and now we were staying there when I got the sad news. It is not a tragedy; he was 79 and has led a good life, he leaves behind two beautiful 19 year olds, Jeanette and her family. and his second wife Pauline. He was one of our best friends and I am so grateful that I knew him and Margaret. Pauline I will keep in touch with, I think of her as a friend even though I haven’t met her.

Before I left Cornwall I wrote his name in the sand on Tintagel beach.
RIP Jim, I shan’t forget you.