Dear Dan,
Thanks for asking about John. You asked me to tell you about him, so I'll tell you briefly some recollections I
have.
John was English and grew up in Maidenhead during the war. He told me that he remembered seeing the sky
was red one evening - from the distance of Maidenhead, his mom told him that was London burning - it made
quite an impression on him.
After school, he started his education as an engineer and when he had finished that, he wanted to travel. So
he went to Germany to work for one year, and after that he worked one year in France, before he came to
Denmark in Nov. 62. He had been corresponding with a friend of a friend who lived in Copenhagen at the time
and decided to visit for two weeks. He had plans to go to Japan later, but got stuck in Denmark.
He really liked Copenhagen and thought he might as well try to get a job, so he rang one of the biggest
Companies here and got a job. They even paid double of what he had got in France! He hitchhiked to
Denmark, arrived on a Sunday, talked to the company on the Tuesday, went for interview Wednesday and
Started working there Thursday. Isn’t that amazing! It’s certainly not that easy to get a good job these days!
He had always been interested in Photography, and was now working more with that. It took up a lot of his time
and he often worked during the night, developing pictures. About this time John decided to work fulltime as a
photographer and set up his own Studio. He was doing advertising, and also lots of concert pictures for various
magazines and some record covers - even for famous people, like his friend Alvin Lee from Ten Years After.
It was during this time that John and I met. In the mid eighties he closed down his Photo studio and worked a
short while for a University. There he had the opportunity to make some crystal pictures taken through a
microscope - he had a few exhibitions. He mixed various chemicals and experimented. The pictures he got
were amazing!
After that, he worked in a place where they had Macintosh computers and he got really interested in this, he
could see the possibilities of making drawings, which he already knew about. So through a friend, he got in
touch with one the biggest Publisher’s here (they were just in start-up phase of doing things on computers). so
John went and talked to them, and showed them a few examples of what he could do (Illustrations), and he got
work. Later on he worked for other Publishers too, and when the new Encyclopedia was started, he got a
contract with them and worked on that for the next ten years. He also bought an expensive program (Geocart)
to help him make better maps.
John was also interested in history, science and art, traveling and music. And he enjoyed reading.
I’m glad I got to spend 25 years with him, he taught me a lot and he was a true friend! Honest, intelligent,
helpful, funny and a real cat lover!
Well, I’ll stop for now, hope you have got a better impression of who he was. I miss him!
All the best,
Randi
Thanks for asking about John. You asked me to tell you about him, so I'll tell you briefly some recollections I
have.
John was English and grew up in Maidenhead during the war. He told me that he remembered seeing the sky
was red one evening - from the distance of Maidenhead, his mom told him that was London burning - it made
quite an impression on him.
After school, he started his education as an engineer and when he had finished that, he wanted to travel. So
he went to Germany to work for one year, and after that he worked one year in France, before he came to
Denmark in Nov. 62. He had been corresponding with a friend of a friend who lived in Copenhagen at the time
and decided to visit for two weeks. He had plans to go to Japan later, but got stuck in Denmark.
He really liked Copenhagen and thought he might as well try to get a job, so he rang one of the biggest
Companies here and got a job. They even paid double of what he had got in France! He hitchhiked to
Denmark, arrived on a Sunday, talked to the company on the Tuesday, went for interview Wednesday and
Started working there Thursday. Isn’t that amazing! It’s certainly not that easy to get a good job these days!
He had always been interested in Photography, and was now working more with that. It took up a lot of his time
and he often worked during the night, developing pictures. About this time John decided to work fulltime as a
photographer and set up his own Studio. He was doing advertising, and also lots of concert pictures for various
magazines and some record covers - even for famous people, like his friend Alvin Lee from Ten Years After.
It was during this time that John and I met. In the mid eighties he closed down his Photo studio and worked a
short while for a University. There he had the opportunity to make some crystal pictures taken through a
microscope - he had a few exhibitions. He mixed various chemicals and experimented. The pictures he got
were amazing!
After that, he worked in a place where they had Macintosh computers and he got really interested in this, he
could see the possibilities of making drawings, which he already knew about. So through a friend, he got in
touch with one the biggest Publisher’s here (they were just in start-up phase of doing things on computers). so
John went and talked to them, and showed them a few examples of what he could do (Illustrations), and he got
work. Later on he worked for other Publishers too, and when the new Encyclopedia was started, he got a
contract with them and worked on that for the next ten years. He also bought an expensive program (Geocart)
to help him make better maps.
John was also interested in history, science and art, traveling and music. And he enjoyed reading.
I’m glad I got to spend 25 years with him, he taught me a lot and he was a true friend! Honest, intelligent,
helpful, funny and a real cat lover!
Well, I’ll stop for now, hope you have got a better impression of who he was. I miss him!
All the best,
Randi
| Jonza |
Pictures of John and Fister:
