Paul Jason
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Time goes on. The seasons turn and blend into a never-ending thread of change as sure as the rains of spring follow the icy frosts of winter. Year melds into year yet the memories live on, fresh as though it all happened yesterday. You did not have to know Paul personally to be drawn into the magic that he wove so skillfully on the race track. Every so often, the sport is torn apart by a tragedy such as this one, by the senseless death of a talented young man. In the aftermath, there is nothing one can do except hope that it will not happen again. No one ever envisaged that something like that could ever happen to Paul - his Oulton Park crash was his first major accident, and as fate would have it, his last… The place where Paul sleeps is a pool of calm in an otherwise turbulent world. The simple stone slab with its touching inscription is a contrast from the other broken relics of years long since gone, cracking and lichen-splotched with age. There are always fresh flowers, creating a splash of colour echoing the vibrancy that characterised Paul in his tragically short life. It is a fitting resting place, a memorial to the vestiges of a lost dream… Extract from "Window on a Lost Dream" |
Paul Jason
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"Greater than the death of flesh is the death of hope, the death of dreams. Against this peril we can never surrender. The future is all around us, waiting in moments of transition to be born in moments of revelation. No one knows the shape of that future or where it will take us. We only know that it is always born in pain." [J.M. Straczinski] |
| A personal view: I visited Paul's grave for the very first time on the 18th June 1997. Somehow I couldn't face going earlier than I did, but I never thought that it would be nearly six years before I would do so. I have subsequently returned many times to pay my respects to someone who meant so much to me - someone who inspired me to make choices in my life that I would otherwise never have made. That first visit was a very emotional experience, but now I find that Paul's grave is a pool of calm in an otherwise turbulent world. It is no longer a place of grief and sadness, but one of quiet reflection and peace, a place of consolation rather than one full of pain and old regrets. Paul's death has affected my life and the way in which I view the sport that I love - it was his death that brought home to me the risks that a driver chooses to take and accept as his own, along with the consequences of those choices. Paul Warwick was the first driver I followed to die - before then I never really thought about it in any great depth. I have friends who race and when they do I pray that they will come back safely, but Paul - a man that I never knew but whom I truly admired for his personality and talent did not come back... In moments of reflection I sometimes have been inspired to put some of my thoughts into words. The links below take you to some of the poems that I have written about Paul; about his life, his death, the fact that he was loved and the importance of not letting go of the memories. The poems are also illustrated with drawings that I have done of Paul.
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