We heard that John had been diagnosed with Leukaemia when he was unable to come to one of our Avro "get-togethers" and following that, I was able to visit him at Salisbury a couple of times before he died.
I was so impressed by the way he dealt with his fate and it was always a pleasure to be in his company while he recounted stories of our time at Farnborough and his working life afterwards, most of it at Boscombe. His sense of humour always shone through. Five of us were able to be at the Service of Thanksgiving at St Francis Church and hear of his schooldays in Swindon with Pete Ryan and more recently his astonishingly long glider flight he made just before he died.
