Welcome all to James

Welcome

This website is dedicated to James Rourke, who was killed, together with his good friend Sam Harber, in an avalanche on the Grande Motte, Tignes, France on 21st April 2005, doing what he loved best snowboarding off piste.

Tribute

James a wonderful son, a fantastic brother, a beautiful soul…..

James packed more into his 26 years than a lot of people do in their lifetime so to write about his life in tribute we find hard as there are so many memories of the happy life he lived and the special moments of happiness he brought to us throughout his life.

When James was born 26 years ago he very much started life the way he was to continue. With his first bungee jump and the delivery nurse catching him.

For the first five years James not only kept us awake with his endless energy but continually entertained us with his imagination. He was great story teller.

When he was four at Nursery School he convinced all the children that there were monsters in the toy cupboard. He was so believable that the kids couldn’t go near the cupboard and the teachers had to make James explain that he had made it up to calm the hysteria. James’s imagination was so intense that he could easily convince anyone and did so on many occasions. Just ask Christie how old she was before she could go to the bathroom on her own!

James loved to entertain and would be performing with his stories, jokes, singing and dancing. At school he settled into School plays and drama also taking part in a modern contemporary dance group the first of its kind in New Milton, who entertained to a paying public. I remember once receiving a call at work from a teacher friend of mine who said that I must come down to the School straight away. It was a talent day for the pupils where they performed all day for each other and the teachers but no parents. With the help of my friend I managed to sneak into the back of the hall where I saw James and his friend Robert come onto the stage dressed up and perform Saturday night fever with all the girls from the audience screaming like something out of a Westlife concert. It was brilliant and so typical of James.

James as you all know also liked to dress up starting when he was young with his superman pyjamas to which he added a cape, so that he could fly. He spent the rest of his youth dressing up at every available occasion. We remember him dressed as a headless man, a spaceman, with his friend as two damsels in distress and of course as a huge credit card for which he won first prize.

This obviously set him up for performing to the many groups of children and of course adults that he had to work with in later life and the many evenings spent with a lot of you here today enjoying your company and of course the odd drink.

James had a tremendous adventurous spirit which started at an early age with us living on the edge of the new forest and by the sea.

Starting with cubs James loved the outdoor life. I remember at the age of ten and whilst we were on a camp helping with the cubs I was offered the chance to have a go at paracending and as usual James wanted to have a go. Much to the dismay of his mum who was nearly sick with fear and with a lot of his friends watching I agreed to let him do his first solo paracending trip and of course he beamed throughout.

He also joined the RAF cadets a year earlier than he was allowed to at the age of 11 after much pressure but was disappointed that he could not fly straight away that is until he was old enough.

At the age of 14 he was taking part in the national Mountain Bike championships all over the UK. Not content to do Cross Country like his mates James preferred to throw himself off the top of mountains coming down as fast as he could. Something he continued to do. He did in fact take part in one of the first downhills to take place on Ben Nevis in Scotland as well as mountain biking down Snowdonia!

James was a keen boarder and at the age of 17 he managed to do his first off piste snowboarding whilst on a trip to America. I had driven him to a local ski resort and waited at the bottom of the mountain whilst he went off up to the top to snowboard down. Not being able to see him for a while and eventually after a couple of hours he appeared with one of the biggest smiles telling me that he had met a few locals at the top of the mountain and had gone off piste with them and then built a kicker from which he said he almost lost it on one of the jumps! I really didn’t know what to say or how to tell his mum. But of course that was always James. Wanting to have a go at everything and never shying away from a challenge.

James was also a very generous person. He never believed in material things and would always share everything he had, which in most cases was very little, to help anyone in need.

Over the next nine years James adventures never stopped and of course we were always there to share the moments.

He started working at PGL marchants Hill followed by Beam down in Devon where he taught kids to abseil and surf. It was here that he met his best mate and our adopted son Steve. His first trip to the mountains in France was to Val D’Isere in an old VW camper. James always knew how to travel in style. He then had quite a few winter seasons working for Crystal in Mongeaneave, Meribel and Chamonix followed by two seasons at Val D’isere with VIP/Snowline. In the mean time he spent summers working in Newquay where he followed his other passion surfing.

When James was not working he spent a lot of time travelling to places such as Indonesia, Australia, Sri Lanka, Mexico, Portugal, Fiji and last year New Zealand where he had always wanted to go. He stayed there for seven months sharing that special place with his soul mate Kat.

James had a great respect and love of the mountains where he snowboarded, hiked and climbed. Together with Sam and other friends they walked from Val d’isere to Grande Motte and raised thousands of pounds for the Tsunami disaster. It was over 3 months later that together with his friend and kindred spirit Sam that they both died on that same Mountain doing what they both loved the most, snowboarding off piste on fresh powder.

Ever since he was young James has had that cheeky smile and wonderfull happy nature which has always brought sunshine in to our lives. You all knew James later in his life but we wanted to show you that James as a boy was exactly the same as he was in later life, funny, generous, imaginative, entertaining, adventurous and of course truly inspirational.

Last year Christie was filling in her book of best friends and asking the family lots of questions. James was included and was asked what would you like to be. He answered happy.

He was then asked what was his biggest wish he answered for everyone else to be happy. Not many people could say that they have achieved their biggest wish, but we believe that James did.

We will always be proud of our son and brother who we love and miss very much, a true free spirit who has always brought sunshine into ours and many others lives. He never let his dreams be dreams.

Peter, Anne-Marie and Christie Rourke

12th May 2005

Newsletter

Date 1st January 2007

As you may all be aware we have been having problems getting the Insurers to pay for the recovery costs following the deaths of James and Sam. Despite many months of representation they have refused to pay up. They state that although the policy covered them for Off Piste, because it was dangerous and they were aware of that fact, then the general policy condition that states “foreseeable danger” will apply in this case and the insurer will not pay towards the recovery costs. In fact the policy did not state whether it covered off piste and did not have an exclusion for off piste and therefore by default did in fact cover off piste snowboarding.The insurance was arranged by VIP/Snowline, their employers, and through an expert company in this field of travel insurance, Fogg Travel Insurance Company. They were assured that the policy covered them for off piste by the employer. The Financial Ombudsman has given his final verdict and agreed with the insurer that the "forseeable danger" clause does not have to be highlighted in the absence of a specific off piste clause. We have of course rejected this view and our only course of action left would be to take the insurers or employers to court privately, as well as giving maximum publicity to this case.

Under French Law, apparently, the debt passes to the next of Kin and in this case both ourselves and Barry and Kris, Sams parents, become liable and have received letters from the authorities demanding about £9000 each. We have to say that at this stage we have not been taken to court in England and it is not clear whether the French authorities will be able to pursue the debt through the English courts and indeed whether they feel it would be worth it. We have been offered help in taking this case up with our local MP’s and MEP’s following all the publicity. We have not been offered any help from their employers, VIP/Snowline regarding this claim and I have to say that we are are particularly unhappy about their total lack of support, particularly as they sold this policy to our sons, their employees!

On behalf of the families I would like to thank everyone for their support and offers of funding, as some have already started to raise money by taking part in long distance runs. After all this time, when the publicity came out, it was not our intention to raise money from this publicity, particularly from friends, but to try and push the insurers into coughing up. Maybe even embarrass them and also the employers VIP/Snowline into offering some help, as both Sam and James were supposed to be valuable employees. It was also our intention to raise the awareness of the problems of this type of insurance supplied by their employers for the new seasonnaires, so that other families do not have to go through what we have.

However both families will continue the fight and publicising the need for everyone taking out this type of insurance to get in writing from the broker/insurance company or employer exactly what cover is available to them, as James and Sam would have wanted.

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