Friends, family and colleagues including Reform UK leader Nigel Farage, fellow presenter Eamonn Holmes and former Bros star Matt Goss were among the mourners as former Radio Aire host James Whale was laid to rest in Kent yesterday.
The radio giant died last month aged 74 following a long battle with cancer. The former Celebrity Big Brother star had been diagnosed with kidney cancer back in 2000, but after being given the all-clear he announced five years ago the disease had returned.
Whale was laid to rest as pallbearers carry his coffin inside the church. Friends Lizzy Cundy and Bobby Davro also gathered with his family and other mourners at the service and the wake that followed.
The host first came to fame for his combative style in the 1980s, as the host of The James Whale Radio Show on Radio Aire in Leeds, which was also simulcast on national television.
READ MORE: BBC accused of “ruining local radio” as Sunday afternoons go national
From 1995 to 2008 he hosted a night-time radio show on talkSPORT, followed by stints on LBC 97.3 and various BBC radio stations. Whale was the host of the podcast The James Whale Show and a night-time weekly radio show on talkRADIO. Frequently controversial and outspoken in 2008 he was suspended by talkSPORT for urging listeners to vote for Boris Johnson in the upcoming London mayoral election. In 2018 he was suspended by talkRADIO pending an investigation for appearing to ridicule a guest, the journalist Nichi Hodgson, who was speaking on air about her experience of sexual assault. He was later reinstated.
Whale was appointed Member of the Order of the British Empire (MBE) in the 2024 New Year Honours, for his services to broadcasting and charity.
Whale is survived by his wife Nadine, as well as his two children, while Nadine has also launched a Just Giving campaign for the Heart of Kent Hospice, which had cared for Whale in his final days. Whale had joked about hanging out with some of his broadcasting heroes in the sky as his typically light-hearted final words were revealed after his death.
Image: Nadine Lamont-Brown/Just Giving
