I have many, many great memories of Tim. The earliest was 1981. I was on a training course and Tim had been drafted in to judge our presenting skills. I’m not sure I passed, and if I did it was just scraped!
Years later via Simon Cole we became friends and colleagues as the stations I ran did business with Unique. Never a cross word with either of them over many years of brilliant programming.
Later still I sat round the Sony Awards board table for a dozen years with Tim as chair – exemplary fairness and good sense at every meeting.
Through it all Tim wore his production brilliance lightly. Unless you knew, you would never realise this was the man who produced one of the biggest breakfast shows ever with Tony Blackburn, repeated the trick with Noel Edmonds on Sundays, helped Capital dominate in London and was so revered by Alan Freeman that Fluff asked him to be his manager so Tim could still be in his life.
A truly extraordinary career and a truly great man. My thoughts are with Margaret, Simon, Jo and the rest of his family – and his really close friends like Simon Cole and Simon Ward who will both be devastated.
Sadly the latest chapter in my life, Boom Radio, would have been a great finale for Tim – we were thrilled that he was going to be one of our founder investors – but a hold up on a property sale meant he couldn’t join. How we would have valued his advice had he been able to join us.
Next Sunday at 9pm we will be paying tribute to Tim on Boom with a special edition of our music and chat show “Choices” which Tim and I recorded just after his diagnosis. It’s a great listen – Tim could tell a great anecdote – and very moving too.
Do give it a listen.
RIP Tim.