I received the sad news this morning that John has lost his fight against leukaemia. His son, Chris, contacted me and said:

"I'm sorry to have to tell you that my dad has peacefully passed away. He had side effects to his treatment and it was too much to overcome."
He asked me if I would mind posting on the forum to let his friends on here know the news. Of course, it's the least I can do to help John's family at this time. I've told Chris to stop by and read the forum at some point, because I know there will be lots of kind messages that follow this post, I hope it will help the family just knowing he has so many friends around world who miss him too.


John was a great person. I've known him a relatively short time, but it was his kindness and love of garter snakes that drew me and Char deeper into the Thamnophis world. I know he'll be proud that he managed to get us completely hooked on garters and pass on his passion for the little buggers. I'm going to miss chatting to him, he had a lifetime of knowledge about garters and natrix, but conversations invariably drifted away from snakes and he was just such an easy person to talk to about setting the world to rights, how boring football is, and the idiots you get in taxis. On the forum, I'm going to miss the weather reports from Liverpool from our friendly, thamnophiphile scouser in every birthday thread - the weather reports always made me smile and look out of the window.

Farewell and rest easy my friend, the world is a worse place today with your passing. And I pass on my deepest sympathy to the McCann family.