Died: December 6, 2020. JIM HAYNES, who has died in Paris at the age of 87, was a bon vivant, an ever-generous host and a flamboyant character who forever had a twinkle in his eye. Formidably well-connected, he was a counter-cultural polymath who recalled introducing David Bowie to the mime artist, Lindsay Kemp, and was once described as being, in the early 1960s, the unofficial agent for the beat generation in Scotland. He founded the UK’s first paperback bookshop, in Edinburgh; when he relocated to Paris, in 1969, he kept an open house, and his Sunday-evening dinners became the stuff of Parisian legend.
The truly one-off co-founder of the Traverse Theatre in Edinburgh, Jim Haynes, has died at the age of 87. Louisiana-born Haynes, known as being a pivotal character in the evolution of the Edinburgh festivals, also opened the first paper-back only bookshop in the UK - which was set up in Edinburgh s George Square in 1959 and soon became a celebrated hotspot for performance and art. Traverse Theatre have paid tribute to the legend, saying: We are heartbroken to hear of the passing of the legendary internationalist, serial entrepreneur and one of the Traverse s founding spirits, Jim Haynes. Jim was truly a “one-off”.
His father was a drinker – by his 40s, Jim had sworn off drugs, alcohol, tobacco and even coffee – who nonetheless taught his son a lesson that dominated Jim’s life: “When you do something nice for somebody, forget it immediately. When someone does something nice for you, never forget it.” This led to tolerance of all kinds of people – one of Haynes’s books (with Jeanne Pasle-Green) was called Hello, I Love You (1974). He claimed that his ambition was to have everyone in the world in his address book.
In the mid-60s, having been forced out of the Traverse by financial difficulties and internal squabbling, he moved to London and began seeking a “space”, where people could gather and make things happen. “One of the nice things about being in a theatre which is open to new ideas”, he wrote in his engaging memoir Thanks for Coming! (1984), “is that you meet lots of people. Anyone who had a new idea was told, ‘See Jim Haynes, you can do it there’; and they wer
TRIBUTES have been paid to “legendary internationalist” and “serial entrepreneur” Jim Haynes, one of the most important figures in the evolution of Edinburgh Festivals. He was the co-founder of Traverse Theatre and responsible for events in the 60s that helped shape the capital as one of the most culturally significant cities in the world. Louisiana-born Haynes arrived in Scotland in the 50s while serving in the US Air Force, opening the UK’s first Paperback Bookshop in George Square in Edinburgh in 1959, shortly after being demobbed. He helped organise the 1962 international writers’ conference, where 70 of the world’s most celebrated writers came to Scotland to discuss the world of literature.