I met John not long after our arrival in Bradford. As the director of the Zephaniah Trust, based in Shipley, our paths crossed as I sought to make contact with local schools. John is a much-loved visitor (nay legend) to schools across Bradford and beyond, taking regular assemblies to reach more than 10,000 children a year. Using a mixture of silly and more serious songs (often with actions), John blends down-to-earth realism with humour and a strong sense of fun to communicate his message. He provides RE lessons and poetry workshops, as well as coordinating Zephaniah arts days, where our staff and associates provide workshops/lessons across the curriculum. John curates and coordinates our Bible Times Exhibition, a mobile RE resource that travels across the Bradford district.
John loves his home town of Bradford as can be seen in our first video. This was a love I began to share and it was only contentious between us when his beloved Bradford City would play against my home team Cheltenham. Fortunately for much of our time in Bradford they did not play in the same division.
This comment came in on this song yesterday. “This man is truly one in a million ❤️ I truly wish I knew him personally but he’s just one of my favourite childhood memories keeping assemblies alive 💕💕” What a legend!
I was very privileged to be asked to become a Trustee for the Zephaniah Trust and shared many a meeting, loads of children’s activities and curries with John. Being of the same vintage, we shared similar frames of reference in music, faith and politics. When we moved to St. C’s John kindly wrote a song for my licensing about the life of Cuthbert. John has regularly played at both Live @ Costa and St. C’s, where he memorably led our Good Friday evening with his ‘Mary Songs’ concept.
Here is John, this time accompanied by Julie and Juila from Zeph performing a lockdown version of one of his songs. ‘All Around the World’.
Finally, I wanted to include this Garth Hewitt song, sung by John and his daughter Kath. They regularly perform together and indeed their album ‘John & Daughter’ is one of my all time favourites. This particular track teels the story of how without Mahalia Jackson the ‘I have a dream’ speech might never have been made.
King had struggled with his speech, which was supposed to be kept to five minutes. His advisers argued over which themes he should include. King originally thought the speech should be low key, since he was speaking to a broad audience about controversial themes. But during delivery, King started to improvise a bit. When he reached a sentence that felt clunky, instead of calling on the crowd to “go back to our communities as members of the international association for the advancement of creative dissatisfaction,” he went with: “Go back to Mississippi; go back to Alabama; go back to South Carolina; go back to Georgia; go back to Louisiana; go back to the slums and ghettos of our Northern cities, knowing that somehow this situation can and will be changed.” It was at that moment, says King’s adviser Clarence Jones, that Mahalia Jackson cried out: “Tell them about the dream, Martin! Tell them about the dream!” Then King started speaking completely off the cuff. That ad-lib became “I Have a Dream.”
