Source : the age
Few people get to design their own memorial service. But when his oesophageal cancer became terminal, the much-loved ABC broadcaster, musician and author James Valentine contributed to some typically warm and witty event planning before his death at the age of 64 last month.
With wife Joanne Corrigan, children Ruby and Roy, and their network of ABC colleagues and friends, Valentine had an emotional retirement from the airwaves then a living wake in February. He arranged for voluntary assisted dying in April, brought forward a few hours because of the pain. And he had a hand in planning a memorial service that was both a celebration of a rich life and a live radio show in his old 702 ABC Sydney afternoons timeslot on Friday.
Governor-General Sam Mostyn, a long-time friend of Valentine and his family, led the dignitaries in a packed Sydney Town Hall. There were ABC personalities everywhere, including managing director Hugh Marks, who described it as “a room full of love”.
There were musicians, many dating back to Valentine’s time playing saxophone with rock band The Models in the 1980s, who delivered stirring performances.
Had there been a ticket price, it would have been worth it for Kate Ceberano’s moving Amazing Grace while family photos scrolled over a screen above the stage; Paul Kelly’s electrifying Meet Me In The Middle of the Air; and Jimmy and daughter Mahalia Barnes’ touching You’ve Got a Friend.
No-one sang the old John Paul Young standard Love Is In The Air but it most definitely was as speaker after speaker – including broadcaster H. G. Nelson, master of ceremonies Richard Glover, Mostyn, Marks, chef Matt Moran, the Wayside Chapel’s Reverend Graham Long – spoke of Valentine’s talent for connecting with the city.
What could have been a sombre sharing of the city’s grief became an entertaining celebration.
Fittingly for the most democratic of radio hosts, whose show celebrated small moments of daily Australian life for decades, the stage featured a Hills Hoist with clothes and pegs in matching colours and a couch with throw cushions – both topics addressed at length on his show. And most of the guests were not celebrities but ABC listeners who had jagged tickets.
One, who had never met Valentine, spoke beautifully on stage about the connection she felt over 15 years. Jacqueline Brewer, variously known as Jacqueline from Randwick, Bondi and Kingsford over the years, described his show as a treasured daily ritual.
“Thank you, James, for your playfulness, your intellect, your humour, and your mastery of human connection,” she said. “I’m much richer because of it.”
Ruby Valentine showed she had inherited her dad’s warmth and wisdom.
Ruby Valentine showed she had inherited her dad’s warmth and wisdom.
After an entertaining anecdote about how Valentine had once driven “five screaming teenage girls” out to Homebush for a Justin Bieber concert, Ruby said her father had shown her “how to live with compassion, empathy for others and kindness at the forefront, to focus on my passions and never give up, how to host a good dinner party, how to find the whimsy in everything and the beauty in the everyday.”
Ruby finished with one of the ceremony’s most emotional moments. “I’ll miss him every day,” she said.
Her brother Roy Valentine described how time became precious towards the end of their dad’s life.
“Some people’s grief is like lightning, fast and sudden and loud,” he said. “Ours was like thunder. It had been rolling in for the last two years – metastasised, terminal, incurable, palliative. As Dad said, none of those words you want to hear in a sentence, let alone all of them from an oncologist.”
Roy spoke about how the family all slept in the same room ahead of Valentine’s voluntary assisted dying.
“We comforted him the entire way, and he felt strong enough to let go with us,” he said. “We didn’t want him to feel it necessary to hold on for us, he didn’t feel like he could, and he asked us so politely, ‘I know it’s horrible but I really need to go’. It was such a comfort to know that he really, truly wanted that.”
The ceremony closed with a New Orleans tradition: a jazz funeral march down the centre aisle – with Valentine’s beloved saxophone carried up front – as guests stood and applauded.
But there was a final flourish for listeners to the service on 702 Sydney.
In a pre-recorded message, Valentine thanked listeners, producers and everyone at the ABC for making the event happen.
“Thank you for listening, and thank you for letting me do it,” he said, before his final radio sign-off. “Goodbye.”
