Published: 01 March 2012
by PAVAN AMARA

JAMES John Lawler, who died in his sleep at the Royal Free Hospital, aged 68, was affectionately known as “Jake the Fake” because of a time spent selling replica antiques.

He was born in 1943 in the Irish seaside village of Laytown, County Meath, to Frances and cabinet-maker father, John Lawler.

After his father fell ill, he trained as a cabinet-maker himself and came to Archway to make enough money to support his family of three brothers and four sisters.

“It was a pressure on him,” said his son Jack Lawler, 39.

“Really, he had always wanted to be an opera singer.

That was his first love, his main drive, but money meant he had to find another job too.”

Jake’s love of opera took him to training and singing regularly at the classical music chamber Wigmore Hall, before being offered lucrative contracts in Germany and the US.

“He had to turn them down because he had a family,” said Jack.

“He once said to me that family life had clipped his wings.

I think he felt if he had been single and carefree – like he maybe wanted to be – that he could’ve taken off around the world singing.”

After meeting Jack’s mother Judith Shenhaby in the late-1960s at a party in Camden Town, they had Jack and moved into Starcross Street together, where Jack grew up, and James set up his own workshop in Albany Street.

“He was an anarchist,” said Jack.

“There’s nothing that could sum it up more.

His mind really didn’t work in a straight line.

“He was Camden’s own personal anarchist.

He did what he wanted to do and nothing else, he didn’t care what anyone else thought.

He was well-known in the pubs for speaking his mind.

If someone did something he didn’t approve of they would know about it.

Every other out-of-the-box character in Camden knew him.

“He was never short of something to say.”

A heavy brandy drinker, his only shortcoming was a “love” of alcohol, says Jack.

He frequented The Cape of Good Hope pub in Albany Street, The Eagle in Royal College Street and The Golden Lion.

“His voice always took up a lot of space, shall we say.

But he had another side to him.

Like most outgoing people there was something a lot deeper underneath all that.”

James regularly recited the poetry of WB Yeats, along with his own writings at pubs throughout the borough.

“Even his outgoing nature was actually quite kind.

He didn’t respond well if he thought someone was being victimised anywhere, and he’d say to the perpetrator that he was going to ‘get short shift’.”

Jack says his enduring memories of his father will always be “his workshop, which was more of a social club, the smell of sawdust, surrounded by friends, drink, banter, card games, loud arguments, the smell of French polish”.

In 1990, James and Judith stopped living together and James moved into a Lyme Street flat, where he stayed for life.

“He’d sit on the steps and chat to anyone who would go by,” said Jack. “He loved a chat.”

Following a heart attack two years ago, James was taken into hospital on January 30 after suffering more heart problems.

He was there for four days before passing away.

“I will always remember my father as one thing before anything else.

Yes, he was fun, and artistic, but the thing he truly was, was outrageous, and if he could hear me say that now he would love to hear that.”