I met John as part of a crowd from the Royal Latin School in Buckingham when I was a pupil at Stowe in about 1967/8. Apart from John, I remember particularly Stephen Kay (Sigi), his brother Mark, and someone called Fitz, who used to drive us around in a ridiculous little Austin A35 before the rest of us grew up and got cars. There were others, like Chris Beal, Carol Dormer (?), Fanny Horner, plus Sue Bailey, my first real girlfriend. Sigi, John and Fitz used to come up to Stowe of a Sunday afternoon to have tea and tease me kindly but mercilessly for being a public schoolboy.

My parents at that time had a cottage in Hilsden, so I used to come over quite a lot to see John at the house in Twyford. He always had a lovely way with music and words, and he was always happy to play me his songs. At that time (and even more subsequently) I was pretty involved with music and singing, but John was always the real deal. I also seem to remember that John used to come to London a fair bit (which was where we lived during the week) and that my parents did much piloting of John between London and Twyford at weekends. He was always a welcome and entertaining passenger. I saw a lot of him in those happy days, and was very fond of him.

Later, at The School of Oriental and African Studies, London University, I became involved in the revue group with Mike Hodd. When we needed a proper songmeister, I had no trouble in selling John's talents as our musician-in-chief. When I left SOAS and became embroiled in a career of sorts, I gradually lost touch with Mike and the revue group, and that also coincided with my parents selling the Hilsden cottage, so that connection went too.

However, in a way, John was never quite lost to me, and I often thought about him. To start with he had taught me some of his songs which I burgled shamelessly to impress people. He gave me a tape of them which I'm pretty sure I still have somewhere in the basement. Amongst my group of friends at the time I enjoyed a certain amount of notoriety as I was the singer with a well known society band called Chance, and whenever they asked me to perform privately, my staples were always The Flasher (M. Hodd) and Going To Paris (J. Close). I also remember others employed to raise my standing amongst my friends - Daffodils (wonderful) and a send-up on the country and western genre whose title was something like Country Style.

Then there was "It's the Drink", which lives on to this day. This is the most wonderfully adaptable song, and I duly adapted it. For some 20 years or more I have played cricket for a New Forest team called the Lobsters, which I used as light relief from the heavy programme of gritty league cricket in Surrey. They are a wonderful piss-taking lot incorporating everybody from high-flying QC's to the local fence-erector. There is a dinner every year down near Fordingbridge, and a few years ago, on a whim, I took "It's the Drink" and instead of John's characters (eg. Manny, the tailor) I inserted rude lyrics about the members of the Lobsters. Performing this at the dinner over a number of years, it grew and rather took on a life of its own. To the extent that this Easter, there is a book due to be published (privately), in which I believe The Lobster Song (to all intents and purposes the basis of John's "It's the Drink") will be featured. It is funny the guises in which people like John live after themselves.

That is enough rambling for now, but I remember John well and very fondly, and I am very happy that in a funny kind of way he has come back into my life, albeit posthumously.

Oliver

John died on Bank Holiday Monday 26 May 2003. This in itself is another story but I loved him all over again through this experience.

We met in 1989 and within 3 weeks we had a repertoire. It was so easy to sing with John. He only had to hear the song a couple times and he had it. Then we could just concentrate on refinements and arrangements. Like me, John could harmonise easily so we could enhance each other's songs. I felt so confident in his ability that I was able to relax and sing my best which was anything from light classical to blues. In a short while he introduced me to his own songs, and these are the ones we chose to record at that time apart from the last three. These were recorded sometime later and found quite by chance on the last day that I was to see John.

As was almost inevitable, over time we got closer together and spent four years living together. John encouraged me to take up running again and more shakily go biking with him. As with everything John did, he would take it to its limits. As much effort as he would put into his music, he would do the same for running, biking, poetry and more. It was as if he knew that time was short and he raced to get it all done in time.

All that energy could very often have a negative influence on John. With the same force of power he used in being creative, he could also use through anger and resentment stemming from his childhood and early adult years. He would try numbing this with alcohol and pot, neither of which had the desired effect.

This, for me, can never detract from his amazing talent but in the end we could no long live together. Besides his gift for writing songs, his expression and interpretation in his accompaniment on guitar was exceptional. The two of us and just one guitar were enough to make a song sound complete.

We did carry on singing for a while but the hurt of parting did change the dynamics of our very special musical partnership. Much later after we'd both gone our separate ways, a very dear friend came to tell me that John had been diagnosed with Motor Neuron Disease. I wrote to John and we became good friends again. I had more or less given up singing by then. How could I ever find anyone who could play and sing like John? The heart had gone out of me as far as singing was concerned.

In the early days of John's diagnosis he could still play guitar but singing stopped quite soon as the MND took hold. For a while we could still talk together on the days that I took him out in his wheelchair but as time went by, the computer became the only medium with which we could communicate. He now composed entirely through this medium and filled most of his time writing tunes. It seemed now that the words just did not come so he sent his tunes across the waves for others to write the words. They were never the same though.

Eventually, the time came when John was so tired and weak. It took all his effort just to hold his head up but he was so graceful during this time. I brought along a book to read to him so he didn't have to try and make conversation via the computer. I read to him "The Hobbit" and he loved it. Sometimes he would cry spontaneously. With MND you have no control over your emotions so I had the real John, so fragile and sensitive. It took so much energy just to appear normal and not be overwhelmed by my own emotions, to stop myself from crying and just hugging him. He needed someone near him who didn't dissolve, someone to keep his spirits up. So with all the strength I could muster, I continued to read to him each week until just the week before the 26th May. We had just a few pages left which we completed and I knew that that would be our last private time alone.

John chose his own death. If life had just dragged him along all his life, he now finally took matters into his own hands. Months before he had searched the internet for Dignitas, the organisation that supports assisted suicide. Now with his increasing pain and immobility he knew he had to act before he was too weak to do so. With the help of Lesley, his sister, it was all arranged through Dignitas and the date was set for the 26th May 2003. The only thing now was to say goodbye to all his friends and slip quietly away. But not for John, there was no quietly slipping away. We had a singsong the Saturday before and everyone, who could find the courage, came along and even managed to sing and play a tune or two. But at the end, when Lesley wheeled him away for the last time, there was an intense moment of truth. The realisation that I would never see him again and an overwhelming sense of loss.

I challenge anyone to say that assisted suicide is taking the easy way out. John took on the responsibility for his own life and died with grace and dignity, and with the blessing of his family and friends.

Life has its own agenda when it brings people together and when it drives them apart. I believe I'm still learning and wondering and struggling with the concept of life having a separate agenda from my own and trying to accept it more gracefully. This I would say is the last lesson I learnt from John just by being near him over the last two years of his life.

Time and reflection will no doubt bring other lessons to mind, but just for now I take heart in having been selected by life to play a significant role in John's life - to have been touched by his music and to have been the inspiration for at least one song.

Henny
31st October 2003