John had a hip replacement operation in May after undertaking treatment for prostate cancer last year. He sadly had complications after this operation. He lived alone and had no immediate family.

John was raised in Sussex and did many manual jobs throughout his working life. He moved to Pembrokeshire in the nineteen eighties and purchased land at Pigs Cott farm at Herbrandston, Milford Haven. Here he developed an organic vegetable nursery both wholesale, and direct to customers from a battered old van. John was a skilled mechanic and repaired said van himself, but if the van was beyond reasonable repair he would purchase a new, battered old van!

John cared for the land, planting trees and creating a variety of habitats including erecting an owl and kestrel box, both of which were successful. His legacy at Pigs Cott lives on to this day. John loved classical music and opera, and had a keen eye for detail, carefully storing and cataloguing his vast CD collection. A good friend once turned up at John’s home and looked through his living room window, only to see John in a trance-like state waving his arms about. He was, of course, listening to classical music on BBC radio 3, rather than watching TV. He was a season ticket holder at the Torch Theatre in Milford Haven and regularly attended opera nights.

John was a strong and passionate supporter of The Wildlife Trust and an extremely knowledgeable naturalist. There was nothing he didn’t know about although his expertise lay in the field of orthoptera, more specifically bush crickets and was regularly seen with a bat detector walking grasslands during the day picking up the unique sounds of this species. He had been the County Recorder for this order of insects since 2016. John verified orthoptera records for Pembrokeshire on iRecord and recently had expressed an interest in verifying records for Carmarthenshire and Ceredigion as he could see no one was doing these. He was a regular at West Wales Biodiversity Information Centre’s Recorders Forum and Recording Days. He also regularly attended Pembrokeshire Recording Group monthly field meetings and had a strong interest in fungi and botany, regularly undertaking flora surveys on Wildlife Trust reserves. He had submitted just over 14,500 species records to the Local Records Centre.

John had been volunteering for The Wildlife Trust since the mid 1990’s and over the past decade, a key committee member of the Mid Pembrokeshire Local Group and Voluntary Warden for Westfield Pill. He attended nearly every volunteer work party held on nature reserves and was often disappointed when one was cancelled or postponed. He was just eager to get out and help with any conservation task, no matter how big or small.

He was actively involved with surveying for butterflies with Butterfly Conservation, more so for the brown hairstreak in Pembrokeshire and more specifically at West Williamston and Teifi Marshes nature reserves, whilst also undertaking surveys for harvest mice, recently confirming the presence of this species in places never recorded.

He was an extremely humble and likeable man. His passing is a great loss to the conservation community and everyone who knew him.