I knew John well when I lived in London - I even did electrical work in his house and his wife, Lesley's shop
He was a schoolteacher who was befriended by Ewan and became a regular visitor to the singer's club
He was a fine songwriter who based his songs on his own experiences - the first song I ever heard of his was Jack the Lad, about a pupil he either knew or heard about who died of an overdose of methadone.
John had an amazing ear for vernacular language; another of his songs, a fine exhibition of his skills was 'Centrepoint', a cry of anger about a monstrosity of a multistory building that was erected for profit and left empty as an investment - for about ten years
He turned everywhere for inspiration for his songs - he took a lovely little story from H.E. Bates ans made 'The Lily'
He was a Punch and Judy man and used the plot of those performances to make a philosophical song, 'Punch and Judy'
Around this time, an audience member had come to the Singer's Club and given Ewan and Peg an immaculate first edition set of the first manifestation of the Child ballads (published by Little Brown and Co.
Ewan and Peg decided to use it to promote song making so they offered it as a prize for the best song - John won it with 'Punch and Judy'
In those days everybody was singing John's songs - one of the problems was that his tunes were somewhat anarchical, so singers like Frankie Armstrong and Terry Yarnell tended to make new tunes to suit themselves.
AS Terry said in his sleeve notes, Mr Fox was one of those.
I think Frankie also recorded the song - she certainly sang it regularly
Jim Carroll