This is the Eulogy I delivered at Jon's funeral;. Brenda asked me to share it on this page.
I first met Jon 45 years ago, when he was a member of the Psychology department of what was then Park Lane High secure hospital. I was a green psychology technician at what was then Moss Side High secure hospital. They were separate institutions back then, but nestled together, effectively on one site. The two psychology departments had completely different personnel, cultures, approaches and ways of working. Further, I had been given tasks that I was really not up to, sorting out physiological equipment and updating software used to run assessments. At that time, inside the enormous security wall surrounding Park Lane, Jon was doing some seriously cutting edge cognitive neuropsychology research - when that was barely a thing. For the psychologists in the room, he was researching evoked potentials in psychopathy. This involved administering EEGs, presenting visual stimuli on a screen, and gathering physiological data at incredibly high rates, with millisecond accurate timing, then processing thousands of data points. So he knew his stuff, and some of it was stuff I needed to know, but didn’t. So, I often phoned him for advice, and sometimes visited him to see what he was up to. I quickly learned that he was very generous with both his time and knowledge. This is a theme you will repeatedly hear from many who knew him. I have received emails from many people offering condolences, including many people who Jon mentored or encouraged in an amazing array of academic or professional activities.
Jon was pretty unflappable. The high secure hospitals were (and still are) stressful, demanding and difficult places to work. To make matters worse, the two psychology departments sometimes took markedly different lines on the same issues, or had internal disputes. This made for some pretty lively joint meetings, at which Jon was invariably a calm voice of reason. I later discovered that he was also calm in the face of other crises.
I remember one day he was giving me a lift to a meeting at Liverpool University. He was offering me advice about a computer program which wasn’t running as fast as I needed it to. Suddenly he cursed in broad Yorkshire, screeched to a halt at the side of the road and jumped out. I looked round to see smoke pouring from the back seat. He’d flicked a cigarette end out the window (remember this was back in the old days when smoking to most people wasn’t disgusting) and it had flown back in through an open rear window and down the crack behind the rear seat. He grabbed a mat from the footwell and beat out the smouldering upholstery. He then flapped the smoke out of the car. This done we both got back in and he said “It’s worth checking all your repeat loops for any instructions that don’t need to be repeated - they can be buggers for slowing execution”.
In fact, I only ever saw Jon angry two or three times, and it was always on behalf of either staff, or patients who had been seriously mistreated by someone who should have known better.
Jon was a man of contrasting tastes. He loved traditional quality items, like Gentleman’s’ relish, tailored suits, Bath Oliver biscuits, good wine, fine dining and kitchenalia. He also had a huge collection of high quality shirts, several of which eventually found their way into my wardrobe, to used for court appearances. (and I’m wearing one right now). Hoping to free up some space, every now and then Brenda would rather hopefully ask me “Do you need any shirts?”. Jon also had an impressive aftershave gallery, a fine coat collection, and a briefcase boutique. I said mixed tastes because in contrast he also loved some traditional but more ordinary things, notably victorian poems, George Formby, music hall monologues, offal and pies of all kinds. In fact not all that long ago, he lent me his car, when mine was off the road. I noticed there was a bottle of HP sauce in the drivers side pocket and another one in the passenger side pocket. I asked him why. His reply was “In case we get growlers” ('growlers' is Yorkshire dialect for Pork pies). I asked why two bottles of sauce, and he replied “Hospitality”.
On the same theme, in 2018, on a memorable ‘last of the summer wine’ style trip to Ukraine we, - Jon, Professor Bentall and myself, found ourselves in a Kiev restaurant. The menu included the following: General Lard; Lard in the acute paprika; Lard cold smoking, Baked Lard, and finally, Set of 5 types of lard. With little hesitation, Jon selected the 5 types of Lard option.
I want to say a little bit about the time I spent working in the department Jon headed up at Calderstones. Prior to that I was working at Leeds CMHT on what had looked like a golden opportunity to develop a model forensic service, but had turned into miserable, poisonous experience. I was bemoaning this to Jon, saying I needed to get out, and he simply said “Come and work at Calderstones, it’s great”. I said I didn’t think I was cut out for working in learning disabilities, and anyway, couldn’t commit to being there more than a few months until I found something I really wanted to do. I ended up working in the Psychological Treatment Service for almost 7 years, and that remains one of the best, most rewarding and fun professional experiences of my life. One thing that impressed me was that in weekly meetings every patient being assessed or treated by the PTS, and every project was reviewed. Phil Clayton reminded me that PTS team sometimes frustrated Jon by not moving things on as efficiently as he wanted. Fairly often a person giving a report would refer to something being taking longer than it should as “ongoing”. Jon would faux-grumpily reply “There’s no such thing as ongoing, either it’s done, or it isn’t.”
Jon’s research interests changed dramatically over the years I knew him. He fell out of love with high tech physiological psychology and instead became passionate about the methods of undertaking face to face, conversational and psychometric assessment and the fundamentals of ethical practice. I once asked him about this change and he said “I think I just began to realise what is really important”.
During my time at Calderstones time I discovered Jon and I were independently working on risk management projects that substantially overlapped. I can’t remember which, but one of us commented that we don’t need more risk assessments. We have too many. What we need are ways sharing an understanding and visualisation of risk. The other agreed and Jon then showed me his Individual Risk Mitigation Profiler which was a really promising method of structuring assessment and visualisation. We collaborated on this, just for a couple of weeks. The results were great, and I would love to explain to you in detail exactly why, but perhaps another time. Jon (again generously) said I could incorporate any ideas that might be useful in my project. Although implemented Trust wide, sadly, as far as I know, the risk profiler did not survive the assimilation of Calderstones into Merseycare. However, I understand it is still being used in learning disability services in Lancashire Care, and Jon’s generosity in giving the tool away is formally acknowledged.
The last time I saw Jon was a couple of days before he died. He hadn’t been able to read for a while, and couldn’t even watch TV. I suggested to Brenda that if he wanted I would read to him, either one of his books or his favourite poems. I printed out several Victorian epics including Ozymandias, Sea Fever, The Charge of The Light Brigade, and The Rhyme of the Ancient Mariner, along with The Lion and Albert and The Runcorn Bridge as two top quality monologues. When I arrived Brenda was happy because having eaten nothing for two or three days, Jon was having some fruit salad and ice cream. I sat with him, and when he finished, he asked for seconds. As I gave him the second bowl I told him about my reading aloud offer. He nodded acknowledgement, but then slowly and with extreme effort and concentration finished his second helping. Then I asked “Would you like me to read something now, Jon?” He fixed me with a steady gaze, and after a long pause said, “Is there any more of that ice cream?” This line was delivered just in the way he always served up his deadpan, wicked humour that often baffled or even alarmed those who didn’t know him, but delighted those who did.
Jon wore the cloak of the bluff, penny pinching Yorkshireman, but did so very lightly. It is true that he loved nothing more than having the opportunity to ask loudly and in public “'Ow Much!!??” However, underneath was an astonishingly gentle and generous man who would give to a friend in need whatever advice, support or money was required. He took real pleasure in giving, and a memorable example of this happened after he had started to become ill. He wanted to buy Brenda something very special, but couldn’t think what. He asked Helen, my wife to use her woman’s magical gift-selection powers to help him. She found some beautiful diamond earrings, which Jon bought and Brenda loved. That Brenda was happy was excellent, but isn’t my point. What was really striking was Jon’s absolute delight in having something beautiful to give.
