A phone call from my friend Martin Emmerson, a BBC broadcaster from Sunderland, brought me shocking news of the death of John Hays [above, right], the founder of Hays Travel. John built the UK's biggest independent travel agency chain from the small business he opened in 1980 in spare space at the back of the children's clothing shop owned by his mother in Seaham. John was 71 and a good friend ...
It was up in the East Stand of the Stadium of Light that I first met John Hays.
My Sunderland AFC season ticket, as close as I could get to Pete Sixsmith, with whom I had started attending games back in the 1960s, had quite haphazardly placed me next to four seats occupied by Hays Travel, the highly successful company John had created. He and his wife Irene used two of the seats and made them, if away, and the others available to family, friends or employees.
A friendship began. Irene was more naturally outgoing but John and I also warmed to each other when he was in the seat she usually occupied. Like Pete, he knew far more about football than I but we had the same passion for the game and for our team.
For me, a home game meant a 540-mile round trip from London and John and Irene knew my wife, Joelle, with not the least interest in football, spent the afternoon in the gym and spa of the seafront hotel, now the Grand, at Seaburn; soon came the invitation for all of us to meet up during one of those visits and for us to stay with them at their home in Ryhope instead of heading for the Dales after the final whistle.
The friendship developed over the years that followed and we have seen John and Irene not only in Sunderland but at away games around the country, at the home they bought in London and in France.
In 2001, John and Irene joined us and other friends originally from the North East, John and Trish O’Brien, at our home in the French Mediterranean resort of Le Lavandou. It was on the final day of that visit that the above photograph was taken during a fabulous lunch in Sanary-sur-Mer.
Three years later, when The Daily Telegraph made me its Paris bureau chief, they flew out to be at a grand housewarming party we threw at the impressive flat, with its stunning view stretching from the Louvre to the Eiffel Tower, that went with the job.
We last saw them both when they were staying in Nice and we enjoyed a lunch in Saint-Raphael, a plateau de fruits de mer rather like the one you see above. When I asked the restaurant owner for the bill, she told me John had already paid it, a characteristically generous gesture..
John was a giant of the travel industry and, in my necessarily biased eyes, one of the finest men the North East has produced.
With Irene, whose own high-profile career has included spells as chief executive of South Tyneside and Sunderland City Councils, he took over the shops operated by Thomas Cook until its collapse in 2019, saving or creating 3,800 jobs. Covid-19 has dealt a cruel blow to the industry and the couple were devastated when they were forced to lay off nearly 900 staff. I have no doubt he would have led a strong recovery once this wretched pandemic has been defeated or controlled; it was while at work at the group's Sunderland HQ that John died from a suspected heart attack on Friday November 13.
John's contributions to the area he loved went beyond travel. Years after our first meeting, he became part of Drumaville, the only Englishman in a consortium of Irish businessmen that took over the football club. Niall Quinn, a hero to the fans after he ended his playing career at the Stadium of Light, was the chairman, John his vice chairman. The previous owner, Bob Murray, had made it clear he would negotiate only with a fellow local, John.
From the Hays Travel website
John's monumental contributions to Sunderland and the North East were honoured in 2016 when he was made a Freeman of the City of Sunderland. In a fairer world, he would have died a knight.
While I cannot pretend we were close pals, constantly in touch and meeting up, Joelle and I greatly valued John's friendship, as we do Irene's. With advancing years, we become accustomed to distressing news about those who matter or have mattered to us. Sometimes we know of health issues or lifestyle choices that make death or illness seem unsurprising. But I regarded John, a keen and competitive tennis player, as fit and youthful and do not shrink from the acknowledgement that his sudden, unexpected passing has hit me hard.
Back at the end of the 1990s, I began to look forward to games almost as much for John and Irene's company as for the football. Among treasured memories are inconsequential snippets picked up along the way: John told me he had known June Tabor, one of England's greatest folk singers, when both were studying at Oxford. His Sunday morning treat was to listen to Alistair Cooke's Letter from America broadcasts. And he wanted me to sing The Wild Rover at Irene's 50th birthday party (fortunately for all present, the idea went no further).
I used to describe John as by far the noblest capitalist I’ve met. He never forgot his family’s coalmining roots and he treated people honourably; each summer he and Irene threw open their home, in Ryhope and later Whitburn, for a lavish garden party for Hays Travel staff.
My thoughts now are with Irene and the extended family of someone I described at Twitter, honestly but inadequately, as "a terrific friend but also a great man, good for his city, region, employees and of course family".
I got closer with the follow-up tweet reproduced below though the memorable era for Sunderland AFC to which it refers was as much about what might have been as it was about actual achievement. RIP John. I am proud to have known you.
Brilliant, imaginative, thoughtful, curious and generous. The North East has lost a great man with the sudden death of John Hays, who created Hays Travel, helped secure the Drumaville takeover that gave #safc its best era in decades and did much, much more. RIP.
— Colin Randall (@salutsunderland) November 13, 2020
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