My late mother was a close friend of John, and at my birth in 1960 he became a godfather (along with Maurice Bevan of the Deller Consort). I have many happy childhood memories of his visits in this capacity, and he always took a keen interest in my musical education. As there had been several Johns in his army unit, he was called Bob, and I always knew him as “Uncle Bobby”. In 1979, before going up to Trinity Cambridge as a Choral Scholar, I spent some 3 months with him and his wife Emily at their house off the Via Cassia in Rome in 1979. We had many happy hours of music making: I accompanied his clarinet on the piano, and he tried – not altogether successfully – to teach me the art of bel canto (young choral scholars do not necessarily make good opera singers!). I also remember taking part in a staged sera musicale with the English-speaking community in Rome, which John organised with great enthusiasm. I was the one who went from there to buy a cello in Germany (Mittenwald).