John was born in Southern Rhodesia, went to Plumtree School in Rhodesia, fought in the bush war and did journalism in Zimbabwe-Rhodesia. He completed his articles to become a Chartered Accountant in Zimbabwe and lived in Salisbury/Harare throughout his youth in an exquisite family household, with a lovely garden and his cats. On the surface of a stereotypical existence and one that belies the vortex of lunacy and criminality, his life devolved into a nutcase of the first order who found enlightenment in, of all places, the concrete jungle that is London. Therefrom his existence became four-dimensional, metaphysical and included multiple travel and living in all four corners of the world, romantic love, fatherhood – and a book.