Jim Rance — August 28, 1932-May 31, 2024

JIM Rance, a former chairman of Henley Cricket Club, passed away on May 31 shortly before his 92nd birthday.

He first played for the club in the mid-Sixties and also served as its president.

Jim was one of the signatories when Brakspear granted the club a 30-year lease on the ground, off Matson Drive, in 1974.

In 2005, the club borrowed £200,000 to buy the ground from the company and in 2018 made the final repayment to keep it as a cricket ground in perpetuity.

Jim, who was married to Adrienne, who passed away in 2021, lived in Crazies Hill for 70 years and continued to support the club as he got older. He was born in Taplow on August 28, 1932. He survived meningitis as a child but his brothers sadly died with the disease.

Jim was 20 when he moved with his parents to Crazies Hill and they bought The Paddocks with 26 acres of fields and woodland.

They kept pigs and chickens and built pigsties.

Jim bought five Nissen huts, which had been lived in during the Second World War, for £5 each for the chickens.

He met Adrienne through their shared love of horses. She was a familiar sight, riding her pony Clover around the village and he was a keen horseman. They married in 1963. The couple had three children, Penny, Sarah and Hugh, and eight grandchildren, George, Will H, Katie, Millie, Harry, Will R, Ollie and Liza.

They had a rowing crew to stay with them most summers for Henley Royal Regatta and were involved with the annual Wargrave and Shiplake Regatta.

The Rances downsized to Rebecca’s Cottage after finding The Paddocks and its land too much to manage.

Adrienne was 81 when she passed away and a few months later Jim moved to the Henley Manor care home where he would receive friends for coffee and whisky and liked to chat about old times.