James received his medical education at Bristol University, graduating MB ChB there in 1971, gained the DObst RCOG in 1974 and the FRCS in 1977. After qualification he was registrar in surgery at Southmead Hospital and later clinical fellow in paediatric surgery at Bristol Children's Hospital, and was in practice in Newport, Gwent, publishing papers on urinary incontinence in the elderly. In 1993 he entered the Community of the Resurrection at Mirfield and took Holy Orders in the Church of England the next year and worked as a priest in Sheffield. He died suddenly in Bath on 14 November 1995.