Tom Walmsley

Somebody told me, start with a joke.

That’s the first line of Blood, Tom’s play. “Somebody told me, start with a joke.”

Pope Francis died on Monday, April 21. Jesus, a few days earlier, on Good Friday, April 18. Tom, passed on Thursday the 17th, the day before. Wanted to beat them both to the punch to prove what a good Catholic he was. Not for pride—he didn’t do pride. But out of sheer bloody devotion.

Tom was a Catholic like a man strapped to dynamite is a fire marshal. He believed. Fiercely. Painfully. Beautifully. Like only a man who has done every wrong thing with full knowledge could believe.

He is survived by his wife Diana Clifford—his great love, his impossible match. Kathleen Whelan, who never gave up. A throne awaits you. David Bateman, Thad McIlroy—who helped save him. Graham and Adrian, his boys. Not by blood, but by something deeper.

I knew Tom as a friend, a co-conspirator, a writer’s writer. We made two films together. He wrote Doctor Tin, and I tried to make it a movie. God help me. He used to say he made every girlfriend read it. If she stuck around, she passed. Hard test.

Tom Walmsley was born in Liverpool, 1948. He came to Canada, dropped out of school, and dove into the void: Addiction, sex, poetry, God.

He won the first Three-Day Novel-Writing Contest with Doctor Tin in ‘79, then ran the text like a snake across the bottom of every page of the sequel, “Shades”. That’s not style. That’s theology.

Tom’s voice ran from dirt-floor realism to operatic hallucination. He wrote about heroin and heaven in the same breath. Sex and violence, God and shame. He wrote what hurt. He didn’t write politics because politics doesn’t bleed. Middle-class morality? He pissed on it. He knew sin too well to respect the people who pretended it didn’t exist.

He said he was: “Blond, stocky, below average height, uncircumcised, bisexual, tattooed, with bad teeth and very large feet.” You want honesty? That’s Tom.

His work? Plays like The Workingman, Something Red, The Nun’s Vacation. Poetry like Rabies, Lexington Hero, Concrete Sky. Novels like Kid Stuff and Dog Eat Rat. Libretto for dance: Julie Sits Waiting. Even his titles were bruises.

He married Diana in ‘87. They lived like lovers and soldiers. Fought hard. Loved harder. Traveled like pilgrims. Jerusalem, Cairo, Paris—he wrote on the Berlin Wall: “Tom loves Diana.” The Wall came down. They broke up. Germany reunited. So did they.

He once saved her from a gypsy and a dancing bear. That’s not a metaphor. That’s Istanbul.

He wanted Luther’s line on the wall: “Here I stand; I can do no other.” So did Tom.

They farmed bananas in Israel. He loved zoos. Alligator farms. He bragged about the Dead Sea because Saul went to Everest. He needed to win.

And then Berlin reminded him where he shouted – “I forgot I loved art”.

Tom didn’t collect things. He collected experience. He didn’t own much. But his words? They own us.

Everything he said was sharp and true. And always funny. When he got back from Israel, I asked how he found the people. Said he expected everyone to look like Sid and Sarah Glass from Brighton Beach. “So, what did you find?” “Italians with guns”.

I met him because I loved Doctor Tin. Brian Taylor set up the meeting. I expected a devil. Got a wiry guy with a mop of hair and the voice of a knife.

There are three chapters in the book. At the end of chapter one AJ comes back to life. No reason. No explanation. He just pops up on a morgue table. I told Tom that was exciting. Brilliant and bold. How did he come up with it? He said he was so fucking stoned he thought he had written 200 pages and finished a novel. Then he collapsed. He woke up 8 hours later and realized how short it was. Didn’t have time to come with a reason, so – fuck it – back to life and onwards. That’s when I knew I was starting a relationship with someone special - and scary.

He gave me the first chapter of a novel—Paris, France. Never finished it. I put it in a folder in a cabinet. Years later I had a nervous breakdown. My life had lost focus and meaning. I needed to make a small personal movie. I went to that drawer and flipped through the files. I found “Paris, France”. It reached into my chest and squeezed my heart so hard I thought I would die. Suddenly the light came on and I knew I was gonna live. But we made the movie. He was the best creative partner I’ve ever had. He let me take from the work what I needed And I honoured what he wanted to protect in it. In rehearsal, someone asked if he was married to a line. “Like in Italy.”

His sister died during that film. Real-life tragedy. He kept writing. That’s where “Blood” came from. He was trying to save her in art, because he couldn’t in life.

He signed a book to his father: (Shades) “From your son, Tom…Walmsley.” That’s not cute. That’s deliverance.

He script-doctored movies, some big ones—The Believers, Schlesinger’s film. We met twice a month for lunch. Talked about art, about religion, about boxing, movies, books. Tom was funny. Made me weep with laughter. He’d update me on his love life. And make me laugh like I was listening to him describe the plot of a comedy and then make me cover my eyes like he was talking about a horror movie.

I started a family. I lost time with him. But when I did see him, he’d skip pleasantries. “How’s your daughter? Your wife?” He wanted to know I was happy. I was. I told him. I was moved that he was happy I was happy.

“He was a fighter.” He never gave up. Not on God. Not on the people he loved. Not on words.

Tom lived like an artist. He didn’t decorate his life—he lived it. His body suffered. That was the point. He believed redemption came through the body.

Tom was the Word made flesh. Then beaten. Then crucified. And now—resurrected in the only way that matters: He left behind the Word.

I can’t praise his work like a critic. But it crawled inside me and never left. It changed the way I breathe. That’s what real art does.

He didn’t get the fame he deserved. He watched lesser men get the credit, the money. But he never stopped. Never softened. That made him his own worst enemy. And the real thing.

Did Tom have regrets? Only the sins he didn’t commit. That’s what would’ve killed him.

And from Doctor Tin: “He did go forth in the hopes of setting an example.”

He did. And now we follow.

Godspeed, Tom. Say hi to Jesus. Tell him you beat him by a day.

And you’re not waiting for him to catch up.

A visitation for Tom will be held Friday, May 9, 2025 from 12:00 PM to 1:00 PM at Rosar-Morrison Funeral Home & Chapel, 467 Sherbourne Street, Toronto, ON M4X1K5, followed by a funeral service from 1:00 PM.

In memory of Tom, donations may be made to Fudger House Long Term Care.

https://secure.toronto.ca/webapps/feps_donateto/

“He was a fighter in every sense. Physically, emotionally, spiritually—Tom never gave up.”