Jim Hume: Dec. 27, 1923 - April 13, 2022
British Columbia political columnist Jim Hume took much pride in having never missed a deadline in 70 years. He missed his first one April 9 when admitted to hospital in Victoria, where he died four days later at age 98. “Jim always said he wanted to die with a pen in his hand,” recalls Joan Sawicki, who knew Mr. Hume first in the mid-1960s when she was a young server in a Victoria pub and much later when she was a politician. They met as Mr. Hume was beginning his decades-long reign as a political columnist at the Victoria Times and its successor, the Times Colonist. Ms. Sawicki jokes that he gave her the same advice as a server and, 27 years later, a new MLA. “He’d give me little lectures about how I deserved better than to be slinging beer in a pub. He was such a good influence,” Ms. Sawicki says. “When we next met after I was elected to the legislature in 1991, he told me the same thing. Jim Hume is one of my favourite people.” James Hume – no middle name, a family tradition he fol...