I'm absolutely gutted to hear of Jamie's passing.
I hadn't heard from him for a few days, and when I checked Twitter to find the message posted on his timeline, I was just gobsmacked.
I hadn't known him for much more than a year, and then through Twitter, until I mentioned a possible cancer diagnosis. He reached out immediately. He knew what I was dealing with both professionally and personally, and in that period of waiting for a diagnosis, he really did keep me sane. Not just with his advice, but also just with a phone call, or a text message, or of course, on Twitter.
We got to chatting on the phone, and I felt like I was talking to a friend I'd known for decades, and we'd laugh from start to end.
He told me stories of his travels, and through his unique outlook on life, the wisdom he'd picked up traveling the world, and just being a decent bloke, he truly gave me a new perspective on the world.
I learned not to take myself, or the world, too seriously, and especially his advise while I was waiting for my own cancer diagnosis, "You can't play with cards you haven't been dealt, yet, so don't try. And neither of us have been given the black card, yet." I'll carry that wisdom and those words with me for the rest of my life, thanks to him.
I had planned to be in Devon in two months, and we had talked about meeting for a pint in the Blue Anchor. I'll still get there, and when I do, I'll raise my pint to Jamie, who I consider to have been a damned good friend.
To his family, I am so very deeply sorry for your loss. I hope that when you think on him, as time passes and takes some of the sting with it, his memory will bring you nothing but smiles. I feel he'd certainly like that.
And to Bailey, the "Mad Spaniel", he should have ALL of the biscuits.
Uileag MacAmhairghin
27th February 2025