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James Valentine public memorial as it happened: Influential ABC broadcaster farewelled at Sydney Town Hall

Chris Hook, Kayla Olaya and Garry Maddox
Updated ,first published

Key Posts

Richard Glover closes out the memorial
Jimmy and Mahalia Barnes’ tribute to Valentine
Roy Valentine: ‘My dad lived exactly how he wanted to live’
‘We all know how James could listen’: Matt Moran
Paul Kelly electrifies Town Hall
Wayside Chapel’s Graham Long: True love is revealed in those who simply delight in others
‘A master of human connection’: Long-time ABC listener
Kate Ceberano’s song for Valentine
Pinned post from 2.31pm on May 29, 2026
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And that’s a wrap ...

By Chris Hook

And that’s where we’ll leave our coverage of the beautiful celebration of James Valentine.

Thank you for being with us for this emotional event where friends, family and long-time listeners gathered to farewell the beloved ABC radio presenter at a public memorial at Sydney’s Town Hall.

Valentine died aged 64 in April, two years after being diagnosed with cancer. He is survived by his wife and two adult children, Ruby and Roy.

Read more of our coverage on James Valentine:

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Richard Glover closes out the memorial

By Garry Maddox

Master of ceremonies, Richard Glover, flags the celebration of Valentine’s life will end with a New Orleans tradition: a jazz funeral procession down the Town Hall aisle.

The audience stands and applauds as the 30-strong Raise the Roof band heads out, led by Valentine’s “saxmate” Paul Williamson, and Valentine’s beloved saxophone carried in front of them.

It’s been a warm, beautiful and touching celebration that ends, on the radio, with a pre-recorded message from Valentine thanking listeners, producers and everyone at the ABC for making the event happen.

“Thank you for listening, and thank you for letting me do it,” he says. “Goodbye.”

James Valentine’s wife Joanne Corrigan, and Fran Kelly leave the memorial.Sam Mooy

Jimmy and Mahalia Barnes’ tribute to Valentine

By

Singers Jimmy Barnes and his daughter, Mahalia, are performing an emotional and raw rendition of Carole King’s 1971 hit You’ve Got a Friend in their tribute to James Valentine.

“We’d like to do a song about friendship in a room that’s obviously full of friendship, love and respect for James,” Jimmy said.

Roy Valentine: ‘My dad lived exactly how he wanted to live’

By Garry Maddox

James Valentine’s musician son, Roy Valentine, shows he is just as warm, wise and entertaining a public speaker as his sister Ruby.

“How do you want to live?” he says. “My dad figured out how to ask us this question, rather than ‘what do you want to be?’. The first question suggests a way of living that could be fast or slow, rich or poor, city or country. It also implies doing it now. The second question ignores all that stuff that matters and focuses on some end point. Happiness will be yours when you reach it, but you never do. The person who aspires is not the person who attains.”

Roy says Valentine found a job that was two-and-a-half hours a day when he found radio at the age of 37. Then he figured out how to work for an hour a day. Then 20 minutes. Roy says time became precious towards the end of Valentine’s life.

“Some people’s grief is like lightning, fast and sudden and loud,” he says. “Ours was like thunder. It had been rolling in for the last two years – metastasised, terminal, incurable, palliative. As Dad said, none of those words you want to hear in a sentence, let alone all of them from an oncologist.”

Then comes a moving description of the family all sleeping in the same room on Valentine’s last days ahead of his voluntary assisted dying.

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‘We all know how James could listen’: Matt Moran

By Kayla Olaya

When James Valentine was too ill to cook, one of Australia’s most prominent chefs and restaurateurs, Matt Moran, brought him food.

“Now, James is a very, very good cook. He used to do these amazing lamb shanks. I cooked for James a lot over the years, but never more so in the last six months. For those who don’t know, James’ favourite food was a duck consomme, which just happened to be a signature dish, or an old signature dish at Aria,” Moran shared.

“When he became unwell, we started making it for him regularly. The first time I sent it to him, I got this message, James’s words: ‘The duck consomme had a flavour profile that is deep like thyme. It’s audible. It has a long finish, like a great red, unf---ing believable. I’m giving up chemo and going the duck consummate’,” he joked.

When Moran told Valentine that it had been off the menu for many years and they were making it for him from scratch, he sent me this next message saying: “Matt, I’m not that special”.

Looking back, Moran said: “The truth is, I would have cooked anything for that bloke … I’m going to miss those conversations, but most of all, I’m going to miss you, buddy.

“When James was diagnosed, I was actually in hospital myself for a very long stretch. James would come and sit with me, just talk and listen, and we all know how James could listen.”

Paul Kelly electrifies Town Hall

By Garry Maddox

In a moment that electrifies the Town Hall, Paul Kelly sings a song, Meet Me in the Middle of the Air, that fellow ABC broadcaster Hamish Macdonald played on air on the day Valentine’s death was announced last month.

“So many of us loved you, James,” Kelly says. “I’m glad and sad and honoured to be here.”

Wayside Chapel’s Graham Long: True love is revealed in those who simply delight in others

By Kayla Olaya

The Wayside Chapel’s Reverend Graham Long has bronchiectasis, a condition that made him cough without notice and a laugh that sounded like a “portable cement mixer”. But despite that, James Valentine made it clear it should be Long that read his weekly note – not Valentine.

“He insisted, however, that it was to be my voice,” Long said at Valentine’s memorial. “He wanted each of his shows to have light and dark, light and shade.

“He wanted the mood to have movement, loud, soft, serious, sad, and hilarious. So, with his reassurance, I gave it a go, and I was hopeless.

“I did cough, and I did crackle, and James acknowledged that our start was less than glorious, but he just knew that there would be a place in the heart of Sydney people for these stories.

“James loved that I described my own role as a tower of weakness. We give our illusions glorious names: spirituality, religion, career, purpose, meaning, ambition, and other such pretensions, but true greatness of spirit, true love is revealed in those who simply delight in others.

“You, James, were always having fun and always including others in the fun, and when it was time to die, you even used that event for the good of us all.

“There is nothing higher or more wonderful that can be said of a person but that they were good, and you, James, were truly a good man.”

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‘A master of human connection’: Long-time ABC listener

By Garry Maddox

In a beautiful tribute, one of Valentine’s devoted listeners talks about his impact on her life.

Jacqueline Brewer, variously known as Jacqueline from Randwick, Bondi and Kingsford, says she has enjoyed his broadcasts for at least 15 years.

“Radio with James was like that for me, a familiar voice, a treasured ritual arriving each day, saying ‘hello, let me get into something small and I’ll get into it with you’,” she says.

“We never actually met in person. That never mattered to me.”

She closes by saying how much joy Valentine brought her: “Thank you, James, for your playfulness, your intellect, your humour, and your mastery of human connection. I’m much richer because of it.”

Kate Ceberano’s song for Valentine

By Kayla Olaya

Kate Ceberano, the Australian musical icon and five-time ARIA winner, is paying tribute to James Valentine with a gorgeous rendition of Amazing Grace, one of the most famous gospel songs of all time.

Kate Ceberano singing Amazing Grace. ABC NEWS

ABC boss Hugh Marks celebrates room ‘full of love’

By Garry Maddox

After a musical number from Valentine’s band, ABC managing director Hugh Marks says how wonderful it is to be in a room full of love.

“I wish I was in more rooms of love,” he says.

A room full of love. ABC NEWS

While Marks says he arrived at the ABC too late to get to know Valentine personally, he pays tribute to his success on radio: “I can say without hesitation that James was a master of the art that was his chosen craft, an exemplar of the work he chose to pursue, built around genuine relationship he shared with his audience ... A relationship of trust that James earned day by day, broadcast by broadcast, segment by segment.”

Marks finishes by saying of Valentine: “You were brave, you were creative, you did great work, and you made a difference.”

Managing director of the ABC Hugh Marks.ABC NEWS
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