“I owe my enthusiasm for serving the community, and my attitude to public life, to everything that my late father taught me,” says James. But for James, this latest campaign on behalf of the people of North Harrow is more than just a trip down memory lane. 
After all, it is widely acknowledged that it was his ‘never say die’ attitude that was a major influence in overturning the policy that would have lead to the closure of a large number of Tube station ticket offices all over London in June 2008.
James adds: “Certainly I have inherited my father’s determination to pursue to a satisfactory outcome everything I believe in, and whilst I am inspired by the memory of what he was able to achieve for the people, and the values he portrayed as a councillor, I am my own man so I shall draw on my own experiences, as well as deploying the tactics that I learned from my father in the run up to the election in May.”
It was in 1979 that James Snr decided to contest the Pinner by-election, and with it saw the formation of a father and son team that would make its presence felt in local politics throughout the following decade. Although it would take over five years, and another by-election in 1984 for James Snr to be elected as the first ever independent councillor to represent Pinner, James Jnr had become an established figure working alongside his father in the local community.
He says: “I have vivid memories of accompanying my father to a meeting of residents in Waxwell Lane, Pinner, and finding myself standing in the middle of someone’s back garden up to my waist in water!”
The River Pinn used to regularly burst its banks and thanks to a persistent campaign by James’s father, and others, the flood prevention measures put in place by the council have meant that this problem is largely a thing of the past.
James is often asked how influential he thinks his father was when he was a councillor.
He says: “I think it is best measured by the high success rate he achieved in being able to assist residents to overcome the many problems they faced, because in all cases what may seem trivial or unimportant in the wider scheme of things, is of the utmost importance to the person who is directly affected, or who feels strongly, about a particular issue.”
“They also want someone who makes themselves available and who genuinely wants to help.”
James has lived in the area all of his life, attending West Lodge First and Middle Schools before moving on to Nower Hill High School. It was while he was at Nower Hill that his aptitude for journalism first appeared when, at the age of 12, he set up a newspaper which was distributed throughout the school.
His journalistic skills were later employed by Greenhill College (now Harrow College) as a press and publicity officer and he has also worked as a freelance for a host of local newspapers including the Harrow Observer, Wembley Observer, Harrow Times and Hendon Times. He is also an active member of the Chartered Institute of Journalists.
For the past ten years James has worked for London Underground, including the last eight at the award winning North Harrow station. He is most recognisable as the station’s voice on the public address system and it is this role combined with his previously mentioned work as a journalist that have lead to his foray into broadcasting with a weekly newspaper review slot on BBC Three Counties radio.
In 1987 James was inspired to honour his late mother’s memory and embarked upon a charity fund raising event titled ‘James Bond goes Underground’. Following his mother’s death from cancer two years earlier, he set out to gain a place in the Guinness Book of Records by visiting every Tube station in one day, and although he missed out on breaking the record by less than five minutes, his near 19 hour marathon raised over £23,000 which was split equally between the Cancer Relief Macmillan Fund and Michael Sobell House, the hospice at Mount Vernon Hospital in Northwood.
It is his close-knit family that has instilled in him the importance of taking an active interest in the neighbourhood in which he lives and works, and when asked to sum up in one sentence what motivates him to get out of bed each morning, he replied, “I sincerely want to make a positive difference to people’s lives, however large or small my intervention and influence turns out to be.”
Bond with the people of Harrow 