Tribute Edition February 2018 THIS ONE’S FOR YOU, JAMES Family, friends and readers say goodbye It was always In this issue: MEMORIES OF A LOST FRIEND the paper for LOVE & GRATITUDE PRAISE OVERFLOWING the people SNIPPETS FROM THE PAST Welcome to the “God bless ‘em, Tribute Edition of The Saltaire Sentinel, in every one” - Ed honour of its founder These are the last words and editor, my uncle, James wrote as Editor of James Duncan, who The Saltaire Sentinel passed away over the and they couldn’t be Christmas holiday. more fitting. Losing a friend who contributed The bitter-sweet task of so much to our lives is editing this Sentinel painful. I helped James gives me the along the way with The James was, that we lay who, like The Saltaire Sentinel, but I always opportunity of inviting The Saltaire Sentinel to Sentinel, was dearly had his guidance. For family and James’ rest, alongside its loved and will never be this tribute issue I’ve friends to participate in creator. I hope you will forgotten. worked closely with his remembering James and enjoy this edition in nearest and dearest: celebrating his life. which we join together Oliver T. D. Scruton Fiona, his sister and Undoubtedly, one of his to remember James Oliver, his nephew, who proudest achievements took charge of editing. was The Saltaire THE SALTAIRE SENTINEL STORY We are uplifted by the Sentinel, launched 15 Created and edited by James Duncan, The Saltaire loving tributes to James, the shared memories Sentinel has been part of Saltaire life for 15 years. The years ago with an and the praise for his identity that was first edition was published on 1 January 2003; the last many talents and unique, announced its on 1st December 2017. Two issues are missing, April achievements, not least purpose in a clear and 2013, and June 2017, due to circumstance and ill The Saltaire Sentinel. independent voice. The health. Overall, 178 Sentinels were published, each James would have been voice behind this one archived in Shipley College. Since January 2006, delighted with such introduction belonged, the Sentinel has also been available online feedback. His response of course, to James [saltairevillage.info] sought out far and wide for its to his family, friends and character and quirkiness. In total, 89,650 copies have readers would be, I’m Duncan. James was The sure, “God bless ‘em, been printed. We join here to celebrate James and his Saltaire Sentinel. It is every one.” unique contribution to Saltaire, our World Heritage with the utmost respect Pamela Reynolds and love for all that Site village, and mourn the loss of a dear friend. WHATEVER IT WAS - IT WAS SAID IN THE Sentinel! JAMES - IT WAS AN HONOUR Oliver T. D. Scruton writes: When I was 12, I founded, edited and wrote a was shocked, surprised, scared, weekly newspaper which I named, The Weekly Whisperer. It was terrible, but or a mix of all three. I if you can’t tell where I got that idea from then you’re not a reader of The remember him being very Saltaire Sentinel! I’d print it using my dad’s printer and then charge him for the pleased to see me. He was privilege of reading it. It didn’t last many issues – probably due to the always pleased to see me. His disgruntled owner of the printer objecting to me using up all the coloured ink! I face lit up just as it did the last hope I sent copies to my uncle, James, but sadly I don’t remember. Regardless, time I saw him in December. I know he’d have been proud. He started young too. My mum, his sister, tells All in all, there’s a lot of James stories of James making his own publications as a child. He’d handwrite them, living in me. He is a part of me. copy them out several times in order to send it around, and keep a copy for himself. After a while, he got a John Bull Printing Outfit and he’d spend hours using tweezers to delicately place tiny letters in a slide to print his paper. Then he started ‘borrowing’ my mum’s baby typewriter. He broke the F key. Mum was furious! F, the first letter of her name meant it was, in her eyes, the worst key he could’ve broken. He was banned from borrowing her stuff! Eventually, he got a portable typewriter and spent countless hours producing these marvellous publications, none of which survived I’m sad to say. The good news is that the Sentinel is archived and I have no doubt I could get my hands on any issue I liked – especially as most are immortalised online. Newspaper production isn’t the only thing I got from James. Somehow in our shared DNA, I have inherited a voice similar to his, which was resonant and Oliver T. D. Scruton sonorous. Mine’s not a carbon copy by any means but I’m told it has some of the same hallmarks. Much like James, I’ve often been asked to narrate a play or THANKS TO ALL read aloud. I remember when I was about 8 and we lived abroad, I was asked to narrate a play in German There are many people to thank: Maggie Silver of Salts Mill who followed immediately by steadfastly supported the Jack and the Beanstalk in Sentinel. Pamela Reynolds, of English, and then a crazy the Saltaire Village Website, for performance of Tchaikovsky’s, online and technical assistance. The Nutcracker - but as a play Thanks to Shipley College; the featuring me singing The speedy John Taylor in re- Time Warp from the Rocky prographics; Julie Woodward, Horror Picture Show wearing Sandi Moore and staff in the a green sequin suit! We sent Saltaire Archive; the legwork of James a DVD of the whole Roger Clarke and Dina Plowes, evening. He certainly found and the church and businesses on the whole affair amusing – as whose shelves the Sentinel was did my parents – but he was placed for people to freely help also excited to see me take themselves. Thank you to the the lead in two languages, Sentinel’s contributors: the late even if it was from behind a Clive Woods, Dave Shaw, Roger curtain at some points. James Clarke, Colin Coates, David and also featured in many plays Jonathan Starley, and many in his younger years, often giving a solo performance in his living room for more; and thanks to the immediate family. He was also keen to point out he played the Sheriff of Sentinel’s many readers in Nottingham at Leeds Arts Centre where Peter O’Toole started his career! Saltaire and around the world. One of my earliest memories of James was when I was 4 and we surprised him James couldn’t have done it for his 50th Birthday at Salts Mill. My parents, grandfather and I arrived early without you and I am grateful. James appreciated you all more wearing big fake beards - nothing like James’. From the photos, I didn’t much than he could say. Thank you like mine as it appears to have been taken off almost immediately after his all. arrival! His face when he saw us was certainly a picture. I can’t tell whether he Oliver HE WAS MUCH MORE THAN MY ‘BIG BRO’ Fiona Scruton writes: James was a fantastic brother. Benny Hill songs and trotted them out at any He never treated me like the ‘pesky little sister’ that I appropriate or, indeed, inappropriate time. One line undoubtedly was at times, but rather he included me in that immediately springs to mind is: as many of his schemes and activities as he could. He ‘He was a great Lexicographer, well he had would invent a game, create stringent rules - we’d play ample opportunity, he wasn’t writing his diary all it and then he’d produce elaborate score sheets and the time was he?’ league tables. It gave him as much pleasure recording things as doing them. I won’t be the only one to James was a great prankster. In our younger days, if remember the Subbuteo World Cup - an elaborate there was a problem with utilities, a man would be competition made up of my brother’s friends, including sent around the streets shouting, ‘Water going off!’ Ian Cooper, James’ lifelong friend, and kids who lived sending our mum into a flurry, filling every pan, on our street. To enter you had to have full teams, with bucket, and even running the bath. One afternoon, home and away strips (my brother will have helped with when Mum was taking a bath, James started shouting loans of these) and provide a home venue, such as your in a muffled way, ‘Water going off!’ He thought it was lounge or cellar. In true James style he would hilarious, Mum panicking, trying to shout orders to fill painstakingly organise the matches and record the everything while scrambling out of her bath. There scores. I was only about six and a girl to boot, but I were endless scams where he and I would go to the was allowed to enter! Some competitors accused me of phone box on the corner to make prank calls to Mum, pushing rather than flicking and one time I burst into pretending to be a phone engineer and having her tears so that the match was declared a draw, but my whistle down the phone.