Jimmy Greenwood – 1947 – 1972 A life cut short

(JG) I have been meaning to write about my uncle Jimmy, Tom’s younger brother for some time. He has been a haunting presence in my life – for a number of reasons. Firstly, obviously, he died very young, and in tragic circumstances. It always strikes me that while Fritzi lost her son Heinz in the holocaust, her sister Sylvia must have felt so blessed to have escaped, with Tom, and to go on to have Jimmy too, (though he was born after the war ended of course). But then to lose Jimmy in a rugby accident must have felt particularly cruel. Secondly, people tend to draw comparisons between the two of us, both how we look but also similarities in personality, and a love of music. I inherited his collection of vinyl records, and his guitar, both of which I treasure. He also played the trumpet. Lastly Jimmy’s loss ultimately led to my granny dying. By all accounts the death of Jimmy who she doted on was a tragedy from which she never recovered. Within a few years she died of cancer – and many close to her felt that she gave up on life when Jimmy died. I wish my dad (Tom Greenwood) had written a section on him as part of his memoirs, but sadly that never happened. Now Tom is no longer with us, I feel a need to write a bit about his life as a way of remembering him. If anyone reads this who was friends with him, or knew him, I’d love to hear any memories.

Early Days

Jimmy was born James Eric Greenwood on the 21st April 1947. He was more than 10 years younger than Tom, with the war in between them – so Otto and Sylvia had a long wait for their second child! By the time Jimmy was born, they were at least finding their feet in the UK, Otto was running a factory making umbrellas, and Sylvia had a variety of local jobs too I think.

I don’t know much about his early life. I do know he went to the same primary school as Tom – Hollins Grove – and then on to Lancaster Grammar. In October 2025 I had a lovely email from Peter Gray who knew Jimmy growing up in Darwen. He wrote:

“I too went to Hollins Grove school, but was born in June 1946, so was not in the same year as Jimmy. However, we lived in Earnsdale Avenue (33 I think!) and your family were further up the road on the left side. My most significant memories are of sledging down Bob’s field (he was a farmer) and being taught to ski on Earnsdale avenue! I also seem to recall meeting his granny in the house and him being a trumpeter. One more thing. My wife of 55 years (also Hollins Grove) seems to recall sewing threads in umbrellas at Mr Greenwood’s factory!”

Thanks for the memories Peter!

By all accounts Jimmy wasn’t quite as academic as my dad, and while dad went to Jesus College Cambridge, Jimmy went to Loughborough University to study Production Engineering.

Everyone who knew him says Jim was great fun – really jolly with a great sense of humour. He loved music and sport. And he was just finding his feet in terms of dating and relationships. There are lots of pictures of him with someone called Jane, though in letters he wrote he says he was disappointed that a relationship wasn’t working out. There are also many pictures of him, with various beards, and moustaches, and often he’s fooling around and being silly for the camera, which is brilliant.

He certainly seems to have had loads of friends – and was best man at three or even four weddings.

Of course, my memories of him are very limited. I remember him stopping me eating from a bowl of crisps, of him taking me for a ride in his new convertible car, and putting me on his shoulders, and then on his head – higher than my sister (who was on our cousin Vivienne Greenwood’s shoulders). But sadly no more memories than that. Dad said one of the last things Jimmy did before he died was to help build my sister and I a new sandpit. I certainly remember playing in it afterwards in our garden at 14 Thames Crescent in Maidenhead.

From Loughborough Jimmy joined the Dunlop Organisation, spending the next two years in Birmingham, on a management trainee course.

There he met Gray Olliver – one of the few friends of Jimmy’s I’ve managed to track down (via Facebook). Gray had written a very sweet letter to my grandparents after Jimmy’s death.

He told me:

“Yes I knew Jim well. We started at Dunlop together in 1970 in their graduate training programme – a two year process working for a sort of internal management consultancy department they had where we did time and motion studies, developed very basic (COBOL) computer programmes etc. We shared a house in Aldridge. At the end of the programme Jim got a job with Dunlop Semtex in Berners Street London- but very shortly after was tragically killed in a rugby accident where he was hit by a knee in his head in a tackle. I actually took over his job in London. He was very much the wisecracking, jokey, lively man. Good fun. Good company.”

So Jim had only recently accepted his first assignment as Assistant Production Manager at Dunlop’s Tiling and Flooring Division, when he had the accident; in fact he died on the Tuesday/Wednesday and was due to start the job the following Monday.

There are quite a few press cuttings from the local papers about his death and the inquest that followed. He was attending a pre-season training session with Maidenhead Rugby Club at Braywick. He told Tom he ‘saw stars’ when he bumped his head going in for what was described in the inquest as a ‘very courageous’ tackle.

I’m surprised that Jimmy was even playing rugby. He had a similar build to me, and neither me nor dad are particularly sporty, though dad did play rugby for many seasons at school, university and then various works teams.

At the inquest, Tony Smith, the man he tackled, said he got the ball from a loose scrum, and ran down the middle of the field. He said Jimmy came to tackle him from the front and his shin bone struck him somewhere. He said he carried on, and then saw him lying on the ground and asked if he was alright. He said ‘gosh you hit me’ but then said he was alright. In reply to the coroner Tony Smith said the tackle was a fair one. He said someone with more rugby experience would tend to go to the side, rather than straight on.

He said he saw Jimmy in the shower room later and he said he was alright, but had lost his memory. He said he could not remember whether he had come by car and if so where he had left it. Tony reported this to the club captain. Another of the players said Jim couldn’t remember why he was in Maidenhead, and said he cried a bit because he couldn’t remember. I find these details heartbreaking.

He was a bit shaken, so had a soft drink and an aspirin and went to bed in his room at ‘Tall Trees’ in Bray, my grandparents’ house. He was staying there temporarily ahead of starting his new job in London.

My grandfather Otto found him dead in bed on the Wednesday morning. My dad used to say that the moment he was called by Otto to tell him the news was the worst in his life, and that put his trousers on over his pyjamas and rushed over to Tall Trees from our house in Maidenhead. As I said, my granny never recovered from the shock – went into a long period of mourning – and died of cancer in December 1977. Otto used to say she died of a broken heart.

In the photo album Sylvia put together after Jimmy’s death there are several poems – one of which says in German:

‘Sometimes I wonder, what if Jimmy was still alive. And I answer myself: then you would still be alive.’

Another – a quote from the Daphne du Maurier novel ‘I’ll Never Be Young Again’ – which she had framed alongside a photo of him reads:

‘If it must be so, let’s not weep or complain / If I have failed, or you, or life turned sullen / We have had these things, they do not come again / But the flag still flies and the city has not fallen.’

I think in fact that as far as Sylvia was concerned the city had fallen.

The final poem reads:

‘Peace be with the dead / Mourning cannot awaken them / A sigh of the disappeared, then we resume our cloudy life / With the certainty that we too will find peace one day.’

Jimmy’s death certificate says at the time of his death he was a product manager at Syntex Ltd. I’m not sure if that’s part of Dunlop. The cause of death reads subdural haemorrhage, closed head injury and blow to the head. The finding of the inquest was ‘death by misadventure’.

When Sylvia died – she was buried with Jimmy.