(words by Patsy Hamilton)
As a career naval officer, Jimmy saw the world in very clear black and white, coloured firmly inside the lines. When he became a grandfather we witnessed a softening and a blurring of lines. Then, in 2015 he attended AfrikaBurn for the first time and the repressed artist burst forth in a kaleidoscope of colour.
Jimmy embraced the burn. He embraced the freaks and geeks, the crews, the sparkle ponies and all those people that don’t have a label even if they really, secretly want one and the fomo is killing them. He’d talk to anyone and then listen in such a way that people wanted to talk. Deep things. That was a gift.
But, even with all the embracing, he wouldn’t hesitate to call you on a dick-move. Straight, honest, to your face. Or sometimes just give a loud: “HEY!” to help people in the ice line course-correct. Funny how no-one talked back…
Jimmy also embraced the ethos of the burn and took volunteering seriously. At his burn he signed up for an ice shift on the Monday, bonded with Ginger Beave and the rest is history. Jimmy worked EVERY single subsequent ice shift for the next five years! Yeah, back in the days where there wasn’t an ice tent to keep people cool, when we had two trestle tables and a truck.
In the city he was a regular attendee of volunteer days, although Charlotte, his wife, and I worked while he just talked kak with everybody.
However getting ready for the burn was a finely tuned military operation and Jimmy was in charge. Food, drink, and packing all on a printed spreadsheet being ticked off as we progress. We had to be on the N1 by 7:00 am, so that we’d get to the Tankwa in plenty of time to set up. We’d stop for breakfast about 20km after hitting the dust. When we got to site, shade had to be up asap, the reward was a cold beer.
Around camp Jimmy was the jaffle maker. You’d come home in the wee hours and there would be a container of jaffles on the table. (And there is nothing better than a jaffle at 2:00am.) He was also the pourer of the first gin and tonic in the afternoon. The taker of astounding pictures. The most amazing thing was the complete disarray of his side of the tent, clothes, costumes, blankets all on the stretcher. Then dumped on the floor for sleeping and then dumped back on the stretcher in daylight hours. Charlotte’s bed was made every day. My favorite burn moments are just hanging out in our camp shooting the breeze.
At AfrikaBurn we are invited to invent the world anew. When Charlotte passed, Jimmy, O’Neil and me and the rest of the family had to shift – dramatically. The world was new, but poorer. And now, a short two and half years later, the world is poorer still.
