I posted on Jim’s facebook page that I was looking for personal reminiscences about Jim and I’ve had a few responses. Below is the first of these – a contribution from Rona Thomson. Rona, a retired radiographer, has often had festival performers staying with her in her Edinburgh flat.

Jim in Rona’s house for a festival party, 2010 (© Rona Thomson)

“I think I was introduced to Jim in 1993 by Michelle Banks who was performing in her own show at the Pleasance courtyard. She also performed a show about Josephine Baker at the Hill St theatre. She met Jim at a soirée given by a woman called Herzmark. It was attended by David Johnson (a producer) and Joseph Bonnar. Michelle and I hung out every year she came back. One year I took Jim to the Kings [Theatre] to see Alan Cummings (as Dionysus) in The Bacchae. Jim is so tall, we had front stall seats but so narrow Jim couldn’t get comfortable, but he loved the show…Great memories of meeting him every year. A true gentleman and intellectual.”

She has also twice been to Jim’s Sunday dinners in Paris. She even stayed one of the weekends and helped with dinner. One of the guests she met that weekend was a nurse from USA who was also an international orchid judge! On another occasion she chatted with a lady lawyer from the States who had read about his dinner parties in a flight magazine.