Jim played for the 1st XV between 1975 and 1976 as a prop (and occasionally as a blindside flanker), before moving north, where he played for Vale of Lune, Derby and Watsonians in Scotland. Jim also played for Hertfordshire County as a schoolboy, and his uncle, Richard Ransford, propped for Harpenden in the post-second world war era.

Apart from playing rugby for Harpenden, Jim’s other claims to fame include teaching Chris Hoy, the cyclist, at George Watson’s College in Edinburgh. Like all good rugby players, Jim was hard, fiercely competitive and a committed team man on the pitch, and gentle, kind and unassuming off it. Our thoughts are with his wife Frances and two children, Marianne and Thomas.