23/04/2026
An RIP in a nutshell for our friend John.
Firstly thank-you those that have reached-out and those that have put up loving posts.
We all knew John didn’t want to get ‘old’. Serious military injuries meant life was pain but he survived it, everyday. Every year hurt a little more. The more it hurt the harder he drove. In the last few years he drove hard. He focused a huge amount of energy into raising money for terminally ill children. He raised well over £10,000.
He would have wanted to go out like the rock legends he loved, on the road with his friends, he did that and for that I am proud: To the end stubborn as an Ox, he didn’t bend to pain or fear!
John had survived 2 major military vehicle fatalities; a crash and a landmine. He lost the soldiers and friends around him. He was taught from 17 not to fear death as he was a pawn.
In West Berlin by the bridges to East Berlin: ‘If we have to, what’s our retreat point?’ He asked those above him. ‘There will be no time for retreat’ was the answer of a cold-war looking him straight in the face.
This taught him to live for the day, it may also have helped sow the seeds for him to blind-side spiritual and ethical philosophy in some corners of life, like filming ‘‘lady-boy gang-bangs as no one else was making that stuff then!’’.
Seeing some of 'mans' vast darkness via the threats of war was just the start. After 2 years recovering from a landmine in a military hospital, he wasn’t allowed to leave the military as he was still ‘fit to work’. His whole left-side was fu**ed but he could make a bed or push a broom. ‘No fu***ng way’ he said and left. No Honourable Discharge. He saw then (I feel) the worst of humanity as a war correspondent (photographer) covering slaughter and mass graves. He sent images to his editor and was told ‘we can’t use them as the public won’t finish their cereal’’.
Here he escaped the darkness via money, alcohol, drugs, woman. He blew £14,000 in one weekend in London with another war correspondent. The Call-Girl company rang their pent house and asked for their girls back as none of them had left after their allotted times and returned to work. The next week his mate, the other war correspondent, died at work!
Photography led him to the adult industry via connections to editors who print war and nudity both as news. For those that see the shadow cast by this move I always accepted a man raised in masculine 70s rock and the military, he was taught bad tricks. Once you’ve survived death multiple times, seen death multiple times and realised there’s hundreds of thousands of pounds to made in nudity and s*x why continue photographing death only for it to be censored. He entered ‘The Slime Light’.
I’ve always tried to put this chapter of his life at arm’s length, it’s too shadowy for me, it’s his past not present, but also why would I want to see John having s*x or even filming it!!
Once the fun was gone he put it all down. He sold up and moved to Glastonbury. A last chance saloon for the weird and wonderful raggy-dolls of society.
A little later I opened a small shop called Crafty Shop. In true John fashion he saw empty spaces and filled them with art, records and car-boot crap. So began a 12-year relationship of breakfasts, high-jinx, hustling and clashing horns.
I shut the shop for many reasons, but one was I didn’t want anymore fall-outs. I was tired of his moaning and moaning about his moaning. It’s a shame I can’t let my ears rest from his nagging and swearing to organise trips outside of Somerset like we chatted about in January.
It’s a shame I can’t have a summer away from town knowing in October I’d be DJing for him and Guy at a charity gig. It’s a reminder though of what he held close to his heart, live for today, tomorrow you could wake up dead.
John believed in karma, He had his fair share of giving and receiving.
He loved Lilo and Stich. He said even a misunderstood monster can love and be loved. I hope his actions of light have outweighed his actions of the shadow, where his legacy is that where his friends where his family and the family pack was vast. Like family we probably all argued with him but for myself we both knew there was always water running under the bridge and a knowledge time slips away all to quick.
I have always known I’d have to write something one day. Every winter I put the quill in the ink pot just encase. It’s s**t we are out of winter as he was geared up for at least a few more years. But I think he has been let off (finally) for good behaviour. So, well done mate. 👊
Thanks for reading. There’s a book of many chapters about that man. I had hoped to sit him down and record some of his stories. I will see many of you at one of the coolest funerals you’ll ever go to and we can tell stories there. For those that won’t be there at least you know a little more about this one of kind human and why there’s now a hole in Glastonbury and beyond. x
