A friend much missed. We had many fascinating exchanges over the years about John's favorite African insects. And there were the evocative paintings...

When Johan and I met John in Zambia, our son Sam was just 2 years old and used to jump with joy each time he spotted John’s blue United Nations van coming up the rough road to our place in Mbala. The early tuition he received from John, on the insects of Zambia, on scorpions’ hiding places and on what to do if you met a puff adder or a black mamba, probably influenced ecologist Sam in his career choice.

There are so many wonderful memories shared with John: long rides to Lusaka and picnics by Lake Chila, swimming in Lake Tanganyika in Mpulungu and walks by the Kalambo waterfall.
John hosted brilliant parties but left it to others at the party to find music to dance to!

Back in England, John was a wonderful teacher and after walks with John, the children would come home with new vocabulary and bits and pieces for their scrapbooks. Common daisies were no longer common, they were Bellis perennis. The children delighted in telling me that conkers grew on Aesculus hippocastanum. Over the years, how we loved receiving letters written on tsetse fieldtrips and postcards from meetings at FAO headquarters in Rome.

Scientific accuracy was always what John strived for, not just professionally but also in describing a meal he had enjoyed, a book he had read, a film he had seen or in his amazingly precise parodies of Sean Connery’s James Bond!

When he retired, John shared many hours with his geneticist friend Robert Whittle. They discussed watercolours, tsetse and fruit flies, and politics where they often disagreed in interminable discussions where each of them tried to convince the other that their view was the rational one.

And there was music! There’s an adorable photo of Diana and Tim sitting on the sofa in Ditchling Road, listening to John matching the instruments to birds in Beethoven’s Pastoral, one of his favourite symphonies.

John, lovely John, you were a wonderful friend.

Diana, Noël and John, we send you lots of love.