Tributes to John

I'm hoping that a few more people will add tributes to John Stubbs, who passed away on Sunday, on the forum.

But I can understand how hard it can be to find the words that, when they are written, help others to remember him in his full glory.

I put together my music/photo tribute late last night and I couldn't sleep afterwards.

Although I keep my photos in a fairly organised way, I sometimes write about how I take whole evenings to tidy them up, I don't have time to tag them. I organise them by year and then by event.

My digital collection goes back to 2001, although I have lots of other older photos scanned in, and so I started looking through that year and copying all the photos I could find of John into a special folder. He was in so many of the events particularly between 2002 and 2006 - he walked a 100 mile event in each of those years.

The photo I featured on the front page was taken when he was watching Manx Harriers summer 10km walk in 2002. He was entitled to rest as he had done the 100 miles (I think) the week before.

As I was trying to sleep last night I kept thinking of other photos I missed from my selection. I still can't find some of them but I have included in this post one from near the start of the last ever Boundary Stroll with John sharing the early lead with Adrian Cowin. It was quite fitting that Adrian made the official announcement of John's passing, on behalf of the Isle of Man Veteran Athletes Club, because whenever I found a photo of Adrian I would find one of John in the same batch.

I know that John's friends from his club, and the wider sport, gave fantastic support to John and his family during his illness. I didn't know him as well as some but I did make a single trip to Hospice to see him on the Friday of TT Practice Week. It was the first time that I have ever been in a hospice and I was nervous about the visit.

I was a guest in his home city of Stoke-on-Trent for four years in the 70s and I even used to watch his beloved Stoke City for two of those years. I could talk about Staffordshire Oatcakes and Wrights Pies, those two great Potteries delicacies. Failing that, as I had worked for 8 years at Ronaldsway Aircraft Company, John's long term employer, surely I would be able to find plenty to talk about in a difficult environment.

I need not of worried - we just talked as usual about who was going to win the Parish Walk, and who would not, and about his time on the Isle of Man. He remained so strong and so positive and interested in what everyone else was doing.

As I left, I joked that I should have used my visit to write a feature about him for the www.parishwalk.com website.

As I tried even harder to send myself to sleep last night I wished I had written that feature. There are so many things I still don't know about the man. I hope some of you will write them.

PS I have just edited some video from the 2007 Empire Garage Peel to Douglas walk which I will leave as my final silent tribute ..much better than these words.