Originally Posted by
Organ Morgan.
I don't know Jim very well. On those rare occasions I had seen him he had mostly passed out after having one too many. One time when he was fairly compos mentis was in Bridgend. He was stood outside either a Tesco or Asda holding a litre bottle of whisky. Tears were streaming down his face as a busking lone piper stood across the street playing a hauntingly beautiful rendition of The Bonnie Banks of Loch Lomond.
I mistakenly thought he was homesick for his native Gorbals district of Glasgow and was becoming nostalgic about the smack addicts shooting up or the gang-related razor fights he had witnessed. I tried to comfort him by offering reassurance he would see his homeland again. He looked incredulous. "What are ya on about, ya bampot," he slurred. He raised and looked at the alcohol. "They have put up the price by 50p" he kept wailing while getting angrier with each iteration.
Those who know him much better say he's generally okay but like many Scottish people he can be a volatile character, and rarely more so than on blowy days when the wind can whistle right up his kilt.
"Och ooo the noo," he's been heard to utter whilst standing on tiptoes, followed by expletives that mustn't be recalled here.
He is best known for being the most committed traveller with the long defunct Valley Rams. That organisation was founded when the Rhondda, Aberdare and Merthyr branches of Alcoholics Anonymous amalgamated then later created a travel group to enable them to get paralytic throughout England and Wales. Their numbers swelled when drunkards from Cardiff, Newport, Bridgend and Barry sought membership.
By the time the Rams disbanded Jim had achieved legendary status; he was the only person to be inducted into their Hall of Fame. Many recall with awe that they had never seen him sober. The few that say they had still can't remember him uttering a coherent sentence.
Whilst everyone else had the self-control to remain upright until the first service station stop on the outward journey, Jim would always stumble and stagger into the premises, often whilst shouting what was assumed to be Anglophobic obscenities. Dull Dai from Dowlais, the Rams' Secretary, Treasurer and most eloquent member who acted as his interpreter throughout those years because he had watched the film Braveheart three times, met every query asking to convert Jim's impenetrable dialect into something intelligible with a shrug and a bemused "I'm fecked if I know" response.
Before the Rams' final booze-fuelled adventure a six abreast 12-man honour guard formed before the coach's steps for Jim to walk between after they had reached inside their carrier bags to hold a four-pack of grog cans aloft as a symbolic mark of respect. It was a proud moment for Jim, or would have been had he not been totally bladdered at the time.
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