To celebrate his thirty years of life at the FT, Jimmy invited 200 family members, friends and colleagues to a party at the Globe Theatre’s Balcony Room. Guests included Tory MP Damien Green, the former Metropolitan Police assistant commissioner Brian Paddick, Royal press aide Patrick Harverson, representatives from the Irish and Spanish embassies, Whitehall officials, and senior journalists from across the media world, among them Will Lewis of Telegraph newspapers (ex FT) and four FT editors-Sir Geoffrey Owen, Sir Richard Lambert, Andrew Gowers, and Lionel Barber.

The speeches were led by the former FT Madrid, Rome, and Paris bureau and Latin American editor Robert Graham, one of Jimmy’s mentors during his time in Spain, Portugal and Latin America. Graham, who had flown in that afternoon from Seville, recalled Jimmy’s early days as a foreign correspondent in Lisbon where he helped the safe delivery of his goddaughter Chloe Graham. He then noted Jimmy’s perseverance as the FT correspondent during the Falklands War when he was arrested by the military regime and survived death threats. The Times’s Bronwen Maddox talked of her time at the FT, working with Jimmy on the newspaper’s award-winning investigation into Robert Maxwell’s empire. The ‘keynote’ speech was delivered by the current editor Lionel Barber.

Jimmy paid tribute to colleagues past and present. His described as his ‘guru’ and inspiration at university the journalist Hugh O’Shaughnessy who covered with huge courage Latin America during the repression of the 1970’s including the coup in Chile. O’Shaughnessy later covered the Falklands War and was instrumental in securing Jimmy’s release after he and his wife were arrested on false spying charges.

Other colleagues signalled out by Jimmy for their friendship and professionalism included members of the investigative, political, and public policy teams he had worked with over twenty years, among then Robert Peston (now at the BBC) , Nick Timmins, James Blitz, and George Parker.

Jimmy thanked everyone for being there. He said he felt honoured that one of the MP’s who had turned up was a champion of human rights while the ex senior cop present had exposed the de Menezes scandal. The FT years were remembered fondly and Jimmy praised the enduring quality, integrity, and humanity of the newspaper despite the dramatic physical changes of the last thirty years. He contrasted the FT he had joined in 1978 with the FT of today- “I remember the old FT Hq at Bracken House- a sleepy doorman who never checked who went in and out, the boozer in the basement, and next to it, the printing works with its hot metal machines….I left the FT at Southwark Bridge , exiting through the security barriers, and leaving behind, audiovisual rooms and IT support teams and a newspaper struggling to make sense of one of the biggest economic crisese ever. I remain, as I have always been a member of the National Union of Journalists and I wish management and the chapel luck in negotiating a better future.”

Drink flowed freely. Guests were fed on bangers and mash and fish and chips. Latin American music was provided by Los Soneros from Mexico, via Battersea. There was a surprise 30th birthday cake at 10 pm for Jimmy’s good friend and colleague, the FT political correspondent Alex Barker during which the Telegraph’s Will Lewis arrived, prompting Jimmy to lead another Happy Birthday song, as a celebratory joke (Will, on arrival, had falsely claimed it was his birthday too!).

Later, Jimmy got Los Soneros to play his favourite Havana Club and Gypsy Kings numbers and danced with his wife until after midnight.