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Re: FRANK JAMES 1940-2020

Posted: Tue Jan 12, 2021 12:53 pm
by emgcr
Many thanks for the link Roger and we watched the service today in sadness but also in joy and thankfulness for a life well-lived. The valedictory rendering of Jake Thackray's "Last Will and Testament" personified Frank's attitude to life. Goodbye dear friend.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0OWdT-i4GFE

Here are a few more happy moments from 26th August 2019 :

Re: FRANK JAMES 1940-2020

Posted: Tue Jan 12, 2021 1:17 pm
by old country chemist
Thank you Graham for posting the lovely pictures of your "Gramo-gathering" in 2019. A most memorable occasion it was with 24 of us there, including Frank-happy days! Happy memories!
I also watched the simple service for Frank. Down to the point and no frills, as Frank would have wanted it.
After viewing the funeral, I went and picked out a record by a couple of Frank's favourite jazzmen-"Red" Nichols" and Miff Mole. I played it on the Expert Senior-he would have enjoyed that, and the tune-"After You've Gone" by the "Charleston Chasers with Nichols, Mole and a host of other jazz greats from around 1927.Every year when we visited Frank, usually late July, I would take along a couple of Red Nicholls and Miff Mole records for his own collection. They sounded so good on his machines and it pleased him.
Roger Mackey and myself are hoping, with the family's blessing to do an obituary for Frank, for inclusion in the Spring Edition of the CLPGS magazine. We are hoping the family can fill us in with some of the details of Frank's earlier years before he became interested in EMG and the others. We will have to work fast, as the cut-off date for inclusion in the Spring magazine is 31st January.

Re: FRANK JAMES 1940-2020

Posted: Tue Jan 12, 2021 2:40 pm
by Steve
Yes, a respectful but simple service. Well done especially to Clare (hope the spelling is correct?) for reading the poem. That must have been very difficult for her.

Unless my ears were fooling me, was that not a Scott Joplinesque piano version of "Nice Work If You Get It" for the entry music? Did anyone recognise the recording?

I hope Frank's family know how many of us were watching in with great sadness. There will never be another person like him.

Good bye old friend.

Re: FRANK JAMES 1940-2020

Posted: Wed Jan 13, 2021 7:52 am
by Orchorsol
Wonderful memories, thanks so much for posting those photos Graham. Frank's passing is all the more sad and poignant, but the great man's spirit will continue!

Re: FRANK JAMES 1940-2020

Posted: Wed Jan 13, 2021 6:39 pm
by Inigo
God bless him and his family and friends... I also bought the book many years ago, and crossed with Frank a couple of letters. He was so kind and lovely... He advised me about fibre needles, and he was who finally gave me the definitive punch to try to make my own bamboo triangular needles, which I've been making since then (mid nineties) thanks to his book and personal advice. None who met him in any form came back with empty hands...
He must be in a very good place in heaven, I'm sure he deserves it!

Re: FRANK JAMES 1940-2020

Posted: Thu Jan 14, 2021 2:56 am
by Inigo
Stealing your permission, I've passed a link to this thread to some CLPGS friends I'm currently emailing about all things gramophonic (Norman Field, Phil Bennett, John Banks, Mike Langridge and Michael Comber).
Bill Dean-Myatt, a kind and discographically active man, was also in that group. He sadly passed away less than a week ago. After a fall which took him to the hospital twice this November-December, he finally dead on January 7th, due to complications with COVID in the hospital. We're losing great people...

Re: FRANK JAMES 1940-2020

Posted: Thu Jan 14, 2021 3:33 am
by Steve
Yes, in recent years we've already lost many great and prominent people from the world of gramophones. The list of those I've met and known personally alone already stretches to over a dozen people.

It's a sad inevitably, I'm afraid, with the predominant age of a lot of enthusiasts now being in the "over 75" group.

Re: FRANK JAMES 1940-2020

Posted: Thu Jan 14, 2021 4:06 am
by epigramophone
Inigo wrote:Stealing your permission, I've passed a link to this thread to some CLPGS friends I'm currently emailing about all things gramophonic (Norman Field, Phil Bennett, John Banks, Mike Langridge and Michael Comber).
Bill Dean-Myatt, a kind and discographically active man, was also in that group. He sadly passed away less than a week ago. After a fall which took him to the hospital twice this November-December, he finally dead on January 7th, due to complications with COVID in the hospital. We're losing great people...
viewtopic.php?f=11&t=48135

Re: FRANK JAMES 1940-2020

Posted: Thu Jan 14, 2021 6:33 am
by epigramophone
A MESSAGE FROM PETER JAMES.

Thank you so much for the tributes to my father, personally and also through the Forum.
It has meant a lot to my immediate family, my siblings and the wider family to know that Frank was so widely known and appreciated for his unique gifts and skills.
Hoping that we see you at the Memorial Service to celebrate, sometime soon after Covid.
Best regards,
Peter.

Re: FRANK JAMES 1940-2020

Posted: Sat Jan 16, 2021 3:43 pm
by old country chemist
NOV 2013 007.JPG
I found this picture of Frank today, dated October 2013. It was one of his rare visits to us here in Somerset. Here is the Expert listening to the Expert Senior.