John initially worked at the Harwell Laboratories in electronics and subsequently joined the British Antarctic Survey Team. He learned the Morris whilst on a tour of duty in the Antarctic and participated in the first walking tour of the Antarctic mainland. One of the chaps who played penny whistle wrote home to his mum for ~100 budgie bells which came on the next shipment. The Side then danced in thermals and budgie bells to music of a penny whistle. John returned to Harwell and joined the Side in 1976. He played Happy Jack in the Mummers Play revival .
John left the British Antarctic Survey in 1988 and did VSO in Egypt teaching medical electronics; from there he returned to Cambridge to join the medical physics department at Addenbrookes Hospital.
After a couple of years he went to Hong Kong, where he discovered a Morris side, but then got involved with the Flying Eye Hospital, going to Third World countries teaching & performing eye surgery on the plane. Then, off to New Zealand where there was a Morris side in Auckland and attended a Mayday session to dance the sun up on Mount Eden. Whilst in New Zealand he bumped into Old Boy, Mike Trought.