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Ron and Craig James: An unbreakable bond until their final days
As he neared the end of his battle with cancer, Craig James thought, again, of his twin brother, Ron.
He had been thinking about him for a long time, ever since his death on that devastating January 1 day.
He called Ron “RJ’’ and adored every bit of him. Ron gave Craig the nickname of “Pretty Boy’’.
The twins were tight — inseparable, according to their sister, Debbie.
It was always so. She remembers the night she stood at the door of their bedroom and watched them talk to each other in their sleep.
“They would have been maybe eight or nine and they were having a full-on conversation,’’ she says.
“I walked back to the kitchen with mum and dad and said, ‘There’s something wrong with them’. And they said, ‘No, there’s not’. But they were actually answering each other!’’
A brilliant young footballer, Ron James was playing at league club Footscray when he was killed at the age of 19 in a waterskiing accident at Echuca on the first day of 1990.
It was the first time he and Craig had spent New Year’s Eve apart.
Craig was with a mate on the surf coast when a friend drove from Altona to give him the news.
“Disbelief, denial … unbelievable sadness. Yeah,’’ Craig James said in an interview in 2020.
He said it took him 10 years to get over his brother’s death.
Debbie and her husband, David Brooks, believe he never got over it.
“He never faced it really … from our perspective, he never dealt with it,’’ David says.
Craig James was diagnosed with bowel cancer in 2023 and died in July last year at Epworth Eastern in Box Hill. He was 53. His wife, Debbie, and sons Callum and Brodie survive him.
A week before his death, he told his sister and brother-in-law that he accepted his fate and had something to look forward to; he said it had been too long since he had seen “RJ’’.
Craig James, the twin brother of former Footscray player Ron James. 
Footscray's Ron James in 1988. 
Ron James featured in a newspaper article for his junior cricket exploits.
A 14-YEAR-OLD IN THE GRAND FINAL
It’s 40 years since Sandringham won the 1985 VFA grand final at the Junction Oval, defeating Williamstown.
Yet the match is recalled as much for the appearance of Ron James as Sandy’s success.
James made his senior debut in the grand final at the age of 14, a staggering selection from Willy coach Terry Wheeler.
Crossing from West Newport juniors, Ron and Craig had played with the Under-19 team in 1985, and when its season finished Ron and a few other youngsters trained on with the senior team.
He was a water boy for the preliminary final side.
Twenty-five years after that grand final, Wheeler recalled that Willy needed an X-factor to defeat the Zebras, and reserves and Under 19s coach Bruce Davis suggested the 14-year-old could provide it.
Wheeler, picking the side in the lounge of the Hobsons Bay Hotel, immediately warmed to the idea and phoned Ron’s father, Ian, to see what he thought.
Debbie was at the family home in Rosebery St, Altona Meadows when Wheeler called.
She remembers that her father had a brief conversation with the coach before getting off the phone and explaining Williamstown’s intention.
“Dad mentioned what was going on and we’re all like, ‘Oh my God’,’’ Debbie says.
"My poor mum. She’s saying, ‘He’s too young, he’s just a boy’. So dad went down and spoke to ‘Wheels’ and the rest of them and it all started to happen.’
Ian James drove to the hotel. Star forward Ian “Chops’’ Rickman was on the match committee that Tuesday night and remembers James senior telling the coaches, “The boy won’t let you down.’’
Although Ron was 14, he was already a young man; he and Craig had been shaving for some time.
When they played junior football, spectators from other clubs were quick to say they were surely in the wrong age division. Once, at a school cricket match, they were mistaken for teachers.
Simon Beasley crashes into Ron James and Mick McGuane.
Wheeler decided to start James on the ground.
Years later, he could recite the opening of the grand final as easily as he could the alphabet.
“Well bugger me, Kim Kershaw gets the first knock, straight to Stan Davidson,’’ Wheeler said. “Stan kicks it to the forward pocket and who’s on the end of it, Ronnie. He swings around, has one bounce, has a shot, misses. But he’s running hot within the first 10 seconds of the game. It was one of those moments where you say, ‘This kid’s got something’.
“He did everything we thought he would do. There was no inhibition, no hesitation, no lack of confidence in his own ability.’’
Ron finished with 15 disposals and five marks in a six-point loss.
But the following year he was in the Williamstown team that defeated Coburg in the grand final.
It was Ron James’ last game for Willy.
In 1987 he joined Footscray amid predictions of a long league career with the Bulldogs.
Terry Wheeler (right) with Phil Cleary ahead of the 1985 VFA Grand Final.
EVERYONE WANTED TO TALK TO RON
David Brooks thought it was quite something.
When he started dating Debbie James, he was taken aback at the standing of her twin brothers, who were seven years younger than Debbie.
Altona was like a little village back then, David says, and the James boys were well known for their football and cricket.
In fact, he says, they were like celebrities.
People knew the James twins, even if they didn’t go to school or play sport with them.
When it became known they would be attending Altona High, the whole school was abuzz.
Debbie remembers that visits to the Pier St shops could take an hour because everyone wanted to speak to Ron, even before he went to Footscray.
He obliged them all, showing a gift for remembering people’s names. “You can’t be rude,’’ he would reply when Debbie admonished him for chatting to anyone who approached.
“He’d talk to them like they were the most important people in the world and they were absolutely captivated by him,’’ David Brooks says.
Ron was exceptional at sport and Craig wasn’t far behind him.
Debbie says that Ron “lived and breathed football’’, often taking a ball to bed, but Craig was more casual about it.
“Ying and Yang,’’ David says.
"One loved to train and get dirty. The other one didn’t. One loved school, the other didn’t. They were so close as twins but very opposite. They balanced each other out.’
In cricket, Ron was a batsman and Craig a bowler. They were both good enough to play in the Sub-District Hatch Shield competition for Williamstown, helping it to the premiership.
Debbie says Craig had as much potential as his brother in football and cricket, but Ron was willing to do “the hard yards’’ and Craig was happy to “just rock up and play’’.
Still, he was an excellent runner, doing some sessions with Olympic champion Glynis Nunn, and won a Sunkick competition at the Junction Oval.
David can remember him kicking out from full-back for Williamstown Under 19s and “letting them rip’’, sending the ball spiralling.
There was no jealousy between the twins; they revelled in each other’s many successes.
Mick Malthouse gave Ron James his debut for Footscray.
RON AT FOOTSCRAY
Under the coaching of Mick Malthouse, Ron James made his debut for the Bulldogs at the age of 16 and played 16 games in three seasons.
His family insist he should have played more.
They’ve always thought he was treated harshly at the selection table, recalling the times when Malthouse phoned the family home to pass on a message to Ron that the Bulldogs were “balancing the team’’.
They remember a game when Ron played well only to be dropped the next week.
“I’ve got to say it – I’m not happy with Malthouse,’’ Debbie says.
"He was not fair to Ronnie. Ronnie was only a kid, do you know what I mean? And he could get in the best and Malthouse would drop him the next week.’
David says: “It crushed Ronnie. He didn’t understand what he had to do. From a family perspective, it was always hard to watch that.’’
But Ron often told his family how proud he was to share a changeroom with the great Bulldog Doug Hawkins and “Magic’’ McLean.
Tony McGuinness (left), Peter Foster and Doug Hawkins celebrate a Footscray win.
He related how, on his first night of training, he pulled his shirt off to reveal a hairy chest. Hawkins seized on it. “What the hell’s going on here? How old are you again?’’ he chortled.
After the 1989 season, Footscray fended off a merger with Fitzroy and installed Wheeler as senior coach.
The James family was delighted with the appointment.
Debbie says Wheeler liked Ron and believed in his ability. It went both ways: Ron thought Wheeler was an excellent coach, had confidence in him and would give him a good run in the team.
“When ‘Wheels’ got the gig, it was like Ronnie was completely reborn,’’ David says.
“He’d finish training, come to our place and then run from our place to his mum’s house, just to finish his training off. He was really ready to go for that year in 1990. We’ll never know.’’
Ron James was reborn when Terry Wheeler took over as Footscray coach.
Rickman believes Ron James would have become a 200-game player for Footscray, noting his skills on both sides of his body and his decision-making.
Thirty-five years after the death of his young teammate, Rickman’s voice cracks as he remembers Ron James.
He and few other senior players watched a few Williamstown Under-19 games in 1985 and he knew of the right-footer’s talent.
“But no one expected him to bob up at selection in grand final week, that’s for sure,’’ he says. “It was obviously a surprise – ‘Wheels’ was up for those different type of selections and taking a risk – but Ronnie certainly let his footy do the talking. He rang rings around blokes who were five, 10, 15 years older than him.’’
‘RARITY FOR HIS AGE’
Bruce Davis, the person who suggested the selection of Ron James, says he was a “rarity for his age’’.
“One of the things that was so alluring and intoxicating and romantic about who Ronnie was, there was no baggage with him,’’ Davis says.
“He wasn’t trying to prove a point. He wasn’t trying to be the best. He was just playing footy. It was like being with a kid in a schoolyard. He’s 14 and playing Under 19 footy.
"At least three times I saw him win the ball in the back pocket and run the length of the field passing it off, chipping it to somebody, getting it back and taking it to the goalsquare and we’d kick a goal. He was remarkable. He wasn’t a smart arse, trying to be better than anyone else. He was just having fun.
Davis thought Ron was as good as any other player being considered for selection for the grand final team.
Rickman played 11 games for Footscray. He envisioned Ron James playing many more.
“I’m still very close friends with some of those players who became club legends and we still have discussions when we see each other and every now and then his name comes up. And I think everyone agrees he was a 200-game player.’’
He says Ron did not have a flaw in his character – “probably because of his age, he hadn’t developed any yet’’.
“We gave him plenty of chances in pub crawls when he was 14 and 15, but he was just one of those great kids, still developing his life skills. It was one of life’s tragedies, what happened to him.’’
The James twins on their first day of prep school at Newport Primary
THE WATERSKIING TRAGEDY
Ron James, his girlfriend Andrea, his mate Joe Ferguson and other friends decided to spend the last couple of days of 1989 at Echuca, on the Murray River.
Ron had never waterskied but he took to it with gusto.
“He got up there and he went from two skis to one ski in a single day apparently,’’ David says.
By the afternoon of January 1 the group had packed up and was ready to drive back to Melbourne when it came across other friends who had arrived with their boat.
They put it in the water and asked if anyone would like one final ski before the drive home.
Ron James took up the offer. A short time later he hit a semi-submerged tree. The family was told he was killed instantly.
Debbie says the James children were never allowed to water ski when they were young, even on family trips to Mulwala.
When Ron left for Echuca, his mother had a reminder for him. “No skiing,’’ she said.
David and Debbie were at home when Debbie’s uncle phoned to say what had happened.
David could not bring himself to tell her, saying only that there had been an accident of some sort and they should drive to the family home in Altona Meadows.
“I’m really ashamed of myself … I couldn’t, one, understand it and, two, break the news to Deb,’’ he says.
"We drove to Deb’s mum’s house and all hell broke loose there unfortunately. Bloody horrible.
The funeral was held at Holy Trinity Anglican Church in Williamstown.
Peter Gordon had been president of Footscray for only a short time when Ron James died.
He returned from a holiday on the Gold Coast to attend the funeral. Gordon remembers the “sheer trauma’’ of many mourners at the church.
He says it “punched a hole’’ in the club after the euphoria of the “fightback’’ campaign.
“A lot of people thought Ron was going to be a superstar,’’ he says.
The family was overwhelmed by the support it received, from friends, acquaintances and strangers.
Craig and Debbie James and their sons at a family wedding in 2022.
Mrs James, now 82 and living with her daughter in Ballarat, received a phone call from the mother of Peter Crimmins, who had died of cancer in 1976 at age 28. She was deeply touched by the gesture.
About 10 years after Ron’s death, Craig, Debbie and David attended the funeral of Andrea’s mother.
After the service, Andrea took them aside and confided that she had found a lump in her breast. They urged her to go to a doctor immediately. She died of cancer 18 months later, aged 29.
She and Ron had been going out for about a year before his death.
“They were soulmates,’’ Debbie Brooks says.
“They would have got married and had kids, all those things. None of us were in any doubt of that. After the accident – she was there when it happened – she struggled. She decided she needed to travel and get out of Australia. She ended up working on a cruise ship for Al Fayed and he was wonderful to her.
“What happened to her would have absolutely killed Ronnie. They were just meant to be.’’
Ron James in his Footscray gear in 1988. 
Twins Craig (left) and Ron James. 
Ron James on the cover of the VFA Recorder.
REUNITED WITH RON
Joan James and David and Debbie Brooks took an apartment in Box Hill just up the road from the hospital to be close to Craig as he reached the end of his struggle with cancer.
“He said to us probably a week before he passed that it had been a long time coming and he’d missed his twin and it was going to be good to be together again,’’ Debbie says.
The death of Troy and Adam Selwood three months apart this year has made her reflect on her brothers.
“Not being able to cope without the other … it just makes me realise Craig did a tremendous job for all those years, because he was never the same.
"Even though he got married and had kids – and he loved his boys to pieces – he never got over Ronnie.’
The family was overwhelmed with support, as it was after Ron’s death.
Work colleagues donated their annual and sick leave to Craig after his ran out, and the company they work for, Into Work, now presents an award named after him.
Nothing gave Craig more pleasure than watching his boys play football.
Callum is with an Under 19 team and David Brooks sees the similarities with his father.
“When he put his boot to a football, it’s the same thing – it just keeps on going,’’ he says.
Ron and James Craig, the inseparable sporting twins, are buried together at Altona Memorial Park.
As he neared the end of his battle with cancer, Craig James thought, again, of his twin brother, Ron.
He had been thinking about him for a long time, ever since his death on that devastating January 1 day.
He called Ron “RJ’’ and adored every bit of him. Ron gave Craig the nickname of “Pretty Boy’’.
The twins were tight — inseparable, according to their sister, Debbie.
It was always so. She remembers the night she stood at the door of their bedroom and watched them talk to each other in their sleep.
“They would have been maybe eight or nine and they were having a full-on conversation,’’ she says.
“I walked back to the kitchen with mum and dad and said, ‘There’s something wrong with them’. And they said, ‘No, there’s not’. But they were actually answering each other!’’
A brilliant young footballer, Ron James was playing at league club Footscray when he was killed at the age of 19 in a waterskiing accident at Echuca on the first day of 1990.
It was the first time he and Craig had spent New Year’s Eve apart.
Craig was with a mate on the surf coast when a friend drove from Altona to give him the news.
“Disbelief, denial … unbelievable sadness. Yeah,’’ Craig James said in an interview in 2020.
He said it took him 10 years to get over his brother’s death.
Debbie and her husband, David Brooks, believe he never got over it.
“He never faced it really … from our perspective, he never dealt with it,’’ David says.
Craig James was diagnosed with bowel cancer in 2023 and died in July last year at Epworth Eastern in Box Hill. He was 53. His wife, Debbie, and sons Callum and Brodie survive him.
A week before his death, he told his sister and brother-in-law that he accepted his fate and had something to look forward to; he said it had been too long since he had seen “RJ’’.
Craig James, the twin brother of former Footscray player Ron James. Footscray's Ron James in 1988. Ron James featured in a newspaper article for his junior cricket exploits.A 14-YEAR-OLD IN THE GRAND FINAL
It’s 40 years since Sandringham won the 1985 VFA grand final at the Junction Oval, defeating Williamstown.
Yet the match is recalled as much for the appearance of Ron James as Sandy’s success.
James made his senior debut in the grand final at the age of 14, a staggering selection from Willy coach Terry Wheeler.
Crossing from West Newport juniors, Ron and Craig had played with the Under-19 team in 1985, and when its season finished Ron and a few other youngsters trained on with the senior team.
He was a water boy for the preliminary final side.
Twenty-five years after that grand final, Wheeler recalled that Willy needed an X-factor to defeat the Zebras, and reserves and Under 19s coach Bruce Davis suggested the 14-year-old could provide it.
Wheeler, picking the side in the lounge of the Hobsons Bay Hotel, immediately warmed to the idea and phoned Ron’s father, Ian, to see what he thought.
Debbie was at the family home in Rosebery St, Altona Meadows when Wheeler called.
She remembers that her father had a brief conversation with the coach before getting off the phone and explaining Williamstown’s intention.
“Dad mentioned what was going on and we’re all like, ‘Oh my God’,’’ Debbie says.
"My poor mum. She’s saying, ‘He’s too young, he’s just a boy’. So dad went down and spoke to ‘Wheels’ and the rest of them and it all started to happen.’
Ian James drove to the hotel. Star forward Ian “Chops’’ Rickman was on the match committee that Tuesday night and remembers James senior telling the coaches, “The boy won’t let you down.’’
Although Ron was 14, he was already a young man; he and Craig had been shaving for some time.
When they played junior football, spectators from other clubs were quick to say they were surely in the wrong age division. Once, at a school cricket match, they were mistaken for teachers.
Simon Beasley crashes into Ron James and Mick McGuane.Wheeler decided to start James on the ground.
Years later, he could recite the opening of the grand final as easily as he could the alphabet.
“Well bugger me, Kim Kershaw gets the first knock, straight to Stan Davidson,’’ Wheeler said. “Stan kicks it to the forward pocket and who’s on the end of it, Ronnie. He swings around, has one bounce, has a shot, misses. But he’s running hot within the first 10 seconds of the game. It was one of those moments where you say, ‘This kid’s got something’.
“He did everything we thought he would do. There was no inhibition, no hesitation, no lack of confidence in his own ability.’’
Ron finished with 15 disposals and five marks in a six-point loss.
But the following year he was in the Williamstown team that defeated Coburg in the grand final.
It was Ron James’ last game for Willy.
In 1987 he joined Footscray amid predictions of a long league career with the Bulldogs.
Terry Wheeler (right) with Phil Cleary ahead of the 1985 VFA Grand Final.EVERYONE WANTED TO TALK TO RON
David Brooks thought it was quite something.
When he started dating Debbie James, he was taken aback at the standing of her twin brothers, who were seven years younger than Debbie.
Altona was like a little village back then, David says, and the James boys were well known for their football and cricket.
In fact, he says, they were like celebrities.
People knew the James twins, even if they didn’t go to school or play sport with them.
When it became known they would be attending Altona High, the whole school was abuzz.
Debbie remembers that visits to the Pier St shops could take an hour because everyone wanted to speak to Ron, even before he went to Footscray.
He obliged them all, showing a gift for remembering people’s names. “You can’t be rude,’’ he would reply when Debbie admonished him for chatting to anyone who approached.
“He’d talk to them like they were the most important people in the world and they were absolutely captivated by him,’’ David Brooks says.
Ron was exceptional at sport and Craig wasn’t far behind him.
Debbie says that Ron “lived and breathed football’’, often taking a ball to bed, but Craig was more casual about it.
“Ying and Yang,’’ David says.
"One loved to train and get dirty. The other one didn’t. One loved school, the other didn’t. They were so close as twins but very opposite. They balanced each other out.’
In cricket, Ron was a batsman and Craig a bowler. They were both good enough to play in the Sub-District Hatch Shield competition for Williamstown, helping it to the premiership.
Debbie says Craig had as much potential as his brother in football and cricket, but Ron was willing to do “the hard yards’’ and Craig was happy to “just rock up and play’’.
Still, he was an excellent runner, doing some sessions with Olympic champion Glynis Nunn, and won a Sunkick competition at the Junction Oval.
David can remember him kicking out from full-back for Williamstown Under 19s and “letting them rip’’, sending the ball spiralling.
There was no jealousy between the twins; they revelled in each other’s many successes.
Mick Malthouse gave Ron James his debut for Footscray.RON AT FOOTSCRAY
Under the coaching of Mick Malthouse, Ron James made his debut for the Bulldogs at the age of 16 and played 16 games in three seasons.
His family insist he should have played more.
They’ve always thought he was treated harshly at the selection table, recalling the times when Malthouse phoned the family home to pass on a message to Ron that the Bulldogs were “balancing the team’’.
They remember a game when Ron played well only to be dropped the next week.
“I’ve got to say it – I’m not happy with Malthouse,’’ Debbie says.
"He was not fair to Ronnie. Ronnie was only a kid, do you know what I mean? And he could get in the best and Malthouse would drop him the next week.’
David says: “It crushed Ronnie. He didn’t understand what he had to do. From a family perspective, it was always hard to watch that.’’
But Ron often told his family how proud he was to share a changeroom with the great Bulldog Doug Hawkins and “Magic’’ McLean.
Tony McGuinness (left), Peter Foster and Doug Hawkins celebrate a Footscray win.He related how, on his first night of training, he pulled his shirt off to reveal a hairy chest. Hawkins seized on it. “What the hell’s going on here? How old are you again?’’ he chortled.
After the 1989 season, Footscray fended off a merger with Fitzroy and installed Wheeler as senior coach.
The James family was delighted with the appointment.
Debbie says Wheeler liked Ron and believed in his ability. It went both ways: Ron thought Wheeler was an excellent coach, had confidence in him and would give him a good run in the team.
“When ‘Wheels’ got the gig, it was like Ronnie was completely reborn,’’ David says.
“He’d finish training, come to our place and then run from our place to his mum’s house, just to finish his training off. He was really ready to go for that year in 1990. We’ll never know.’’
Ron James was reborn when Terry Wheeler took over as Footscray coach.Rickman believes Ron James would have become a 200-game player for Footscray, noting his skills on both sides of his body and his decision-making.
Thirty-five years after the death of his young teammate, Rickman’s voice cracks as he remembers Ron James.
He and few other senior players watched a few Williamstown Under-19 games in 1985 and he knew of the right-footer’s talent.
“But no one expected him to bob up at selection in grand final week, that’s for sure,’’ he says. “It was obviously a surprise – ‘Wheels’ was up for those different type of selections and taking a risk – but Ronnie certainly let his footy do the talking. He rang rings around blokes who were five, 10, 15 years older than him.’’
‘RARITY FOR HIS AGE’
Bruce Davis, the person who suggested the selection of Ron James, says he was a “rarity for his age’’.
“One of the things that was so alluring and intoxicating and romantic about who Ronnie was, there was no baggage with him,’’ Davis says.
“He wasn’t trying to prove a point. He wasn’t trying to be the best. He was just playing footy. It was like being with a kid in a schoolyard. He’s 14 and playing Under 19 footy.
"At least three times I saw him win the ball in the back pocket and run the length of the field passing it off, chipping it to somebody, getting it back and taking it to the goalsquare and we’d kick a goal. He was remarkable. He wasn’t a smart arse, trying to be better than anyone else. He was just having fun.
Davis thought Ron was as good as any other player being considered for selection for the grand final team.
Rickman played 11 games for Footscray. He envisioned Ron James playing many more.
“I’m still very close friends with some of those players who became club legends and we still have discussions when we see each other and every now and then his name comes up. And I think everyone agrees he was a 200-game player.’’
He says Ron did not have a flaw in his character – “probably because of his age, he hadn’t developed any yet’’.
“We gave him plenty of chances in pub crawls when he was 14 and 15, but he was just one of those great kids, still developing his life skills. It was one of life’s tragedies, what happened to him.’’
The James twins on their first day of prep school at Newport PrimaryTHE WATERSKIING TRAGEDY
Ron James, his girlfriend Andrea, his mate Joe Ferguson and other friends decided to spend the last couple of days of 1989 at Echuca, on the Murray River.
Ron had never waterskied but he took to it with gusto.
“He got up there and he went from two skis to one ski in a single day apparently,’’ David says.
By the afternoon of January 1 the group had packed up and was ready to drive back to Melbourne when it came across other friends who had arrived with their boat.
They put it in the water and asked if anyone would like one final ski before the drive home.
Ron James took up the offer. A short time later he hit a semi-submerged tree. The family was told he was killed instantly.
Debbie says the James children were never allowed to water ski when they were young, even on family trips to Mulwala.
When Ron left for Echuca, his mother had a reminder for him. “No skiing,’’ she said.
David and Debbie were at home when Debbie’s uncle phoned to say what had happened.
David could not bring himself to tell her, saying only that there had been an accident of some sort and they should drive to the family home in Altona Meadows.
“I’m really ashamed of myself … I couldn’t, one, understand it and, two, break the news to Deb,’’ he says.
"We drove to Deb’s mum’s house and all hell broke loose there unfortunately. Bloody horrible.
The funeral was held at Holy Trinity Anglican Church in Williamstown.
Peter Gordon had been president of Footscray for only a short time when Ron James died.
He returned from a holiday on the Gold Coast to attend the funeral. Gordon remembers the “sheer trauma’’ of many mourners at the church.
He says it “punched a hole’’ in the club after the euphoria of the “fightback’’ campaign.
“A lot of people thought Ron was going to be a superstar,’’ he says.
The family was overwhelmed by the support it received, from friends, acquaintances and strangers.
Craig and Debbie James and their sons at a family wedding in 2022.Mrs James, now 82 and living with her daughter in Ballarat, received a phone call from the mother of Peter Crimmins, who had died of cancer in 1976 at age 28. She was deeply touched by the gesture.
About 10 years after Ron’s death, Craig, Debbie and David attended the funeral of Andrea’s mother.
After the service, Andrea took them aside and confided that she had found a lump in her breast. They urged her to go to a doctor immediately. She died of cancer 18 months later, aged 29.
She and Ron had been going out for about a year before his death.
“They were soulmates,’’ Debbie Brooks says.
“They would have got married and had kids, all those things. None of us were in any doubt of that. After the accident – she was there when it happened – she struggled. She decided she needed to travel and get out of Australia. She ended up working on a cruise ship for Al Fayed and he was wonderful to her.
“What happened to her would have absolutely killed Ronnie. They were just meant to be.’’
Ron James in his Footscray gear in 1988. Twins Craig (left) and Ron James. Ron James on the cover of the VFA Recorder.REUNITED WITH RON
Joan James and David and Debbie Brooks took an apartment in Box Hill just up the road from the hospital to be close to Craig as he reached the end of his struggle with cancer.
“He said to us probably a week before he passed that it had been a long time coming and he’d missed his twin and it was going to be good to be together again,’’ Debbie says.
The death of Troy and Adam Selwood three months apart this year has made her reflect on her brothers.
“Not being able to cope without the other … it just makes me realise Craig did a tremendous job for all those years, because he was never the same.
"Even though he got married and had kids – and he loved his boys to pieces – he never got over Ronnie.’
The family was overwhelmed with support, as it was after Ron’s death.
Work colleagues donated their annual and sick leave to Craig after his ran out, and the company they work for, Into Work, now presents an award named after him.
Nothing gave Craig more pleasure than watching his boys play football.
Callum is with an Under 19 team and David Brooks sees the similarities with his father.
“When he put his boot to a football, it’s the same thing – it just keeps on going,’’ he says.
Ron and James Craig, the inseparable sporting twins, are buried together at Altona Memorial Park.
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