A celebration of ABC presenter James Valentine’s life has taken place at a public service at Sydney’s Town Hall, where the memorial included contributions from colleagues, family friends and music icons.<\/p>\n
Valentine died aged 64 last month using voluntary assisted dying, two years after being diagnosed with cancer.<\/p>\n
He had a 30-year career presenting radio at the ABC, most notably for the Afternoons show on 702 ABC Sydney where he developed his distinct approach to talkback radio.<\/p>\n
Follow our live coverage of his memorial.<\/p>\n
Look back at how ABC readers and other Australians responded to this live
\n moment.<\/p>\n
Fri 29 May 2026 at 2:18pm<\/p>\n
Fri 29 May 2026 at 2:18pm<\/p>\n
Thank you for joining us<\/p>\n
This is where our live coverage of James Valentine’s memorial ends. Thank you for joining us.<\/p>\n
Fri 29 May 2026 at 2:15pm<\/p>\n
Fri 29 May 2026 at 2:15pm<\/p>\n
A poignant memorial ends, saxophone leads the way<\/p>\n
With powerful tributes, special memories and musical performances now finished, the memorial is wrapping up with a procession.<\/p>\n
Valentine’s saxophone is carried as the audience files out.<\/p>\n
“Thank you for being part of our celebration of the life of our beloved friend and colleague James Valentine,” said Glover.<\/p>\n
Fri 29 May 2026 at 2:10pm<\/p>\n
Fri 29 May 2026 at 2:10pm<\/p>\n
Musical tributes<\/p>\n
The service is starting to wrap up now, and how better to do this than with a series of musical moments.<\/p>\n
Jimmy Barnes and Mahalia Barnes are performing You’ve Got A Friend.<\/p>\n
When the Saints Go Marching In is also then being played, in a jazz muso tradition.<\/p>\n
Show more<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A celebration of ABC presenter James Valentine’s life has taken place at a public service at Sydney’s Town…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":20909,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[19661,12210,19959,19958,19956,19957,247,19955],"class_list":["post-20908","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-sydney","tag-abc-radio-sydney","tag-james-valentine","tag-james-valentine-abc-presenter","tag-james-valentine-family","tag-james-valentine-funeral","tag-james-valentine-funeral-updates","tag-sydney","tag-vad"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20908","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=20908"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20908\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/20909"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=20908"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=20908"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=20908"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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