Jim Indermaur passed away on the 22nd April, aged 90. He had been a tireless campaigner for the Liberal Party and Liberal Democrats in the seventies and eighties. Collected below are some memories of Jim from friends and fellow Party members:

Sue Proctor

Jim was an enigma.

I remember being at Ann & Donal’s when I was first being considered as a Liberal candidate in 1981. Jim asked what my husband thought of my activities. I was a bit shocked but on talking to Daphne recently, she said that at their wedding her father’s advice to the newly-weds was that a successful marriage was all about team work. She added that she’d had to remind him of that a few times!

Jim was a stalwart member of the Liberal Party, and the Liberal Club. He was protective of both which meant we didn’t always know what he was doing to protect us but it usually worked. In his role as Hon Sec of Chester Liberal Club when I was chairman, I know that Jim ensured the Club kept viable as long as possible in difficult times.

When Gordon & Barbara Smith had a special celebration at the Guildhall and quests were asked to wear Viennese costume, Jim actually made Daphne’s fabulous ball gown. When Daphne had an accident on her bicycle, Jim refused to leave her side and said he insisted on being scrubbed up and gowned to go into the operating theatre with her. They were a devoted couple enjoying their regular ballroom dancing which must have kept them fit.

How many of us remember taking our cars to Oulton Place for Jim to sort out an electrical problem. He always went through a solemn process to establish exactly what was wrong before fixing it, for a very nominal sum rarely more than £1.

He’d stood as a paper candidate a few times and was on Great Boughton Parish Council for a while  but he was really a back-room man helping others achieve success. He did lots of the printing before David Simpson took it on at Enderby House.

Jim was very kind too and I have particular reason to be grateful to him for all the support and encouragement he gave me in many ways.

Ken Holding

I first met Jim when I came to live in Chester in the early 1970s. He was certainly an enigmatic character, but someone we relied on heavily in the early Vicar's Cross Liberal days, to print our invaluable FOCUS leaflets ( however crudely!). He carried out his work alone in the bowels of the Liberal Club; and would deliver stacks of leaflets to our house for onward distribution to the various deliverers in the ward....at whatever time in the evening he had completed his work.

For several years we appreciated his efforts enormously in the 1970/80s, before David Simpson took on the job and introduced a more professional operation.

Jim was essentially a backroom boy, although he did serve on the Great Boughton Parish Council for a while, and on one occasion stood as a paper candidate in Boughton, for which he produced an idiosyncratic election address, which only Jim could have written.

Ballroom Dancing was his passion; and I did have the pleasure once of seeing Jim and Daphne at the Nantwich Civic Hall, where they were regular dancers, as they glided together across the Ballroom floor!

Colin Bain

Indeed we did know him.   He printed our Focus and mended our cars. You had to accept his way and he would never budge. His prices were ridiculously low but his commitment was absolute. He had big problems with the printing press but he did his best and he explained what to do and not do when setting out the Focus.

There is nobody I know who is at all like him.

Jim R.I.P.