Sir James Dixon, RIP

Sir James Dixon died at his home, Manydips Sheeping, in Sussex, on April 1 with his adored wife Christine at this side, along with their 4 children, 10 grandchildren, and three great grandchildren. He was 77. Death was caused by pneumonia.

Sir Jim, as he enjoyed being called, was known to generations of Englishmen as resolute defender of modernity and an acerbic wit, and as the central character in the strange memoir, Lucky Jim.

The uproar over the memoir barely quieted when Sir Jim reluctantly returned to the limelight as the prize defense witness in the trial of Carol Goldsmith, who was accused of murdering her lover, the painter Bernard Welch. Sir Jim’s impression of the victim, accurately mimicking his baying voice, peculiarities of speech, and rakish behavior, convulsed the Court as testimony seldom does. Even that stern jurist, Lord Stringemup, was seen to hide a smile behind his hand, and as Sir Jim concluded his mimicry with “I’m afraid there’s only beer and cider, unless you want to fare forth to an adjacent hostelram,” Counsel for the Queen visibly despaired while the defense counsel, Sir Impey Biggs, had to turn away to hide the look of triumph on his face. One juror explained later, "'E was an awful man. I won't say he deserved killing, not that way, but I wouldn't convict anyone on the evidence they had." Carol Goldsmith always denied the murder of Bernard Welch, and that there were many facts-for example, the presence and the strange position of the rubber duck-that no theory of the crime has ever been able to explain.

Strangely enough, Sir Jim’s performance at the trial opened a new career as an art critic. During his testimony, Jim had lampooned Bernard Welch’s paintings so cleverly that several newspapers sought him out as an occasional art critic. While he spent the next five years principally in the employ of his wife’s uncle, Julius Gore-Urquhart, Jim’s real course and career were set. From the stance of occasional critic of art to that of general public gadfly it was a short step; he became well known as a revealer and lampooner of the pretentious and affected. It is well known that he became a close friend and supporter of Lady Thatcher, for whose sake he stood for and was elected to Parliament. There were rumors during Lady Thatcher’s last government that she considered bringing Sir Jim into the Cabinet as a minister without portfolio just to irritate her critics.

Sir Jim’s greatest assets were his great loyalty to friends, his verbal acuity, and his complete honesty. Despite his willingness to puncture the self-inflating balloons of others, he usually did so kindly; many who felt his needle were in later years grateful to him. If there was any way that he did veer from that honesty, it was in his assessment of himself. He taught only briefly, and readers of Lucky Jim know that he didn’t think well of himself as a teacher. This writer can say that he was in fact an inspiringly clear and lucid teacher, who set me on my own course as a historian.

In later years, Sir Jim scrapped in defense of modern culture with the Bishop of Durham, whose frequent disparaging remarks about the Enlightenment irritated Jim. “The Enlightenment gave us antibiotics, open heart surgery, the Jacquard loom, the novel, democracy, the equality of women, fine bone china, and mass produced buttons. These are good things. People who want to move back to a chintzier, more authoritarian age had better think twice. I’m not going back. I like it here.”

-Lord Michie of Swansea

Note: 2004 marks the 50th anniversary of the publication of Lucky Jim.