John was born in 1952 in Ashbourne. After education at Parkside Junior school and Queen Elixabeth's Grammar school he went to Christ's College Cambridge where he studied maths. On leaving Cambridge in 1974 he started work for Royal Insurance (later Royal Sun Alliance) in Liverpool. He worked there until 2003, initially doing actuarial work before moving to IT for over 20 years where he worked primarily on the integration and decommissioning of Life and Pensions systems following merger and acquisition.

John learnt bridge while at school but only became a proficient player during his years in Cambridge. In late 1976 he formed a partnership with Graham Kirby when Graham left Cambridge and moved to live in Warrington. By February 1978 John and Graham had their first England cap and subsequently represented Great Britain many times, including 7 European Championships, 2 Bermuda Bowls and 2 Olympiads with the highlights being 1st place in the 1991 European, 2nd in the 1987 European and 2nd in the 1987 Bermuda Bowl. Since Graham Kirby retired from international bridge in 1997 John has represented England in a further European partnering Danny Davies. In August 2006 he will play with John Holland in a 9th European Championship. In addition to his playing career John has been non-playing captain of the GB open team in the 1984 Olympiad in Seattle and of the GB team in the 1996 Junior European Championships. The first of these occassions gave some interesting experiences of the American medical system when Hugh Kelsey, the captain of the ladies team, was taken ill with heart problems.

Domestically John has won the Gold Cup 6 times, Crockfords 3 times, the Hubert Phillips 5 times plus many of the EBU's congress events. John has played 38 Camrose matches for England (won 32, drawn 1, lost 5) making him England's most capped player. Administratively John was a member of the EBU Laws and Ethics Committee for a number of years in the 1980s and has been a member of the panel of referees ever since. He also runs occassional training sessions for the England junior squad.

Outside bridge John has two main interests. Firstly orienteering where he particularly enjoys course planning, and secondly playing classical piano music where his favourite works are those of Robert Schumann. He also has occassional sessions playing piano duets with Ron McEwan.