BERT'S WORDS FOR JIMMY

NEWS Sunday 20th December 2015, 2:01pm

by Mike Hunter / Bert Harkins

  Edinburgh Monarchs

Bert Harkins and the late Jimmy Tannock were lifelong friends as well as team mates for the Monarchs. Bert spoke about his old friend at last week's funeral, and here's what Bert had to say:

I would like to say a few words about Jimmy on behalf of his many friends in speedway.

Family members may not be aware of how highly regarded and liked Jimmy was across the speedway world. Tributes have come in from World Champions such as Sweden’s Ove Fundin plus riders and fans nationwide who all enjoyed Jimmy’s company and have their story own to tell about Jimmy “Titanic” Tannock.

He was due to travel to New Zealand this year to spend Christmas with his friends, Joe and Helen Hicks in New Plymouth, but sadly that cannot be. At Joe’s wedding in 1963, when he married Edinburgh-born Helen, Jimmy had taken the place of Joe’s dad at the wedding ceremony, so they have all been friends for a very long time.

Jimmy began his speedway career with the Ashfield Giants and then Lanarkshire Eagles in Motherwell before signing for the Edinburgh Monarchs.

Jimmy was my oldest friend in speedway. Having first met him in the early sixties when he was riding for Edinburgh and I was dreaming of being a speedway rider and I bought my first bike, an old JAP from Jimmy at his tenement workshop somewhere around Maryhill.

As we both lived in Glasgow, and the rest of the Monarchs in Edinburgh and Fife, when I eventually got into the team, we travelled together in Jimmy’s car with the speedway bikes on the trailer.

One time when travelling from Glasgow to a race meeting in England, we were due to meet up with the rest of the team in a layby on the old A74 near Beatock. We were first there and, as it was a very hot day, Jimmy stripped down to his underpants and jumped into the nearby river!

When the others arrived and we went on our way, Jimmy’s underpants spent the rest of the journey down south , swinging from the aerial of his car to dry out,….typical Jimmy T.

In more recent years, Jimmy was a stalwart member of the World Speedway Riders Association and in 2004, was elected as president by his fellow riders. He was also chairman of the Scottish branch of the World Speedway Riders Association, a position he was very proud of and wore his Scottish chain of office with pride.

Despite living up in Glen Orchy, he attended both Ashfield and Armadale and always came down to the annual WSRA dinner at the Marriott Hotel in Leicester and was the genial host of the pre-dinner drinks in “the Scottish Suite” handing out “rusty nails” to all the guests.

But Jimmy will not be forgotten. At Paradise Wildlife Park in Hertfordshire where we have our national speedway museum, we also have a memorial garden and we will put up a plaque in his honour.

There will be an empty chair at the Scottish table at our WSRA dinners next year and we will all miss Jimmy’s dulcet Glasgow tones asking, “ur ye alright, son?” And we will all raise a glass to a Scottish Speedway legend, Jimmy Tannock, “the laird of Glen Orchy” r.i.p. Jimmy.