When I knew him he was in his eighties, very interested in horses and being in the open air.   I think he had made a living by being a Carter (moving and delivering material by horse drawn cart). The paintings and drawing were done in situ at Johns’s pen and the dappled horse was called Dexter.

In the 1914 – 1918 war he served I think with the 17th Lancers as a farrier and was still doing his own horse shoeing in the 1970s.  I do remember making a drawing of an exhausted pony which he had purchased at Clitheroe Auctions and the animal was resting by lying down in John’s pen after they had both walked all the way home to Colne that day.

He was a much respected and very steadfast man with many friends.