JJ LAID TO REST
THE family of JJ Williams say they have been overwhelmed by the reaction to the death of the former Wales and Lions wing, who was laid to rest yesterday.
Williams’ funeral took place at Bridgend crematorium following a procession from the family home at Laleston, with mourners lining the route to pay their respects.
Numbers at the service were limited to 30 owing to Covid restrictions, with Welsh rugby represented by Gareth Edwards, Clive Rowlands, Tommy David and Brynmor Williams.
Among those lining the route were former Wales team manager Alan Phillips, the director of operations for next summer’s Lions tour of South Africa.
The service was conducted by Eldon Phillips, the reverend of Llanelli RFC, while JJ’s son, James, read a tribute on behalf of the family.
Speaking beforehand about the reaction to his father passing away, James said: “It’s been overwhelming, it really has.
“When you are going through this, you don’t think about the wider world or anything like that, he was dad to us.
“On that morning when he sadly passed away, you begin to tell a few people and it just kind of snowballed.
“It’s been incredible the amount of messages we have received and the variety of comments from people making tributes from all over the world.
“As a family, it literally must be close to 1,000 messages across various different platforms, some directly, some indirectly.
“We were receiving messages from people who played with him and had watched him play.
“For example, Derek Quinnell rang me and talked me through comments he’d had from Fran Cotton, Willie John McBride and others.
“The people representing rugby at the service were very close to him. Clive Rowlands, for example, used to call him every Tuesday.
“It goes to show what the rugby family is like. All those Wales and Lions teams of the 1970s have been in touch with either myself, my brother or my mother.
“Then to see the tributes prior to the Wales game the following weekend was just overwhelming.
“That weekend, I was with my mother and we had gone for a walk. We came back and the BBC were playing an old radio interview with him.
“Although it was from 18 years ago, he still sounded exactly the same as he did a few weeks ago.
“It’s been humbling and very nice to hear all the comments from everybody.
“It’s been incredible, it really has. It’s definitely made a very difficult situation a lot easier.”
James continued: “What’s really taken me aback is how many people on social media have talked about having spoken to him or had a picture taken with him.
“What my father absolutely loved doing was speaking to people. He was very much a people person.
“He could walk into a room on his own and within five minutes he would know something about everybody in there.
“That came across by how many people were commenting about him, who had a picture taken with him at a function or rugby event.
“Believe it or not, my father always used to say to me ‘I don’t know if they all like me out there, the public.’
“He would have loved to have seen all the comments because it would have reaffirmed his belief that the Welsh rugby family did very much love him.”
JJ won 30 caps for Wales between 1973 and 1979, scoring 12 tries and sharing in Grand Slam and Triple Crown glory.
He went on two Lions tours – to South Africa in 1974 and New Zealand in 1977, playing in seven Tests and touching down five times.
He played a major role as part of the unbeaten 1974 team, scoring two tries in both the second and third Tests against the Springboks, earning the title “The Welsh Whippet”.
James added: “The part a lot of people don’t know about my father is how much work he did for charities. He would raise money, do functions and do whatever he could to support countless charities, lots of them in and around the Bridgend region.
“He was on the board of the NSPCC and set up the former players’ charity. There were so many people he helped directly and indirectly through the charities.”