Biography

After his parents divorced when he was nine years old and his mother re-married, he became estranged from his father; at the age of 17 he changed his surname from Bottomley to Noakes, the surname of his new stepfather. He left home at age 16 to join the RAF as a mechanic. Later he worked at Heathrow as an aircraft fitter for BOAC.

On Blue Peter, he played a slightly larger-than-life, more daring version of himself. He knew when to ham things up. On the often-repeated clip when Lulu the baby elephant appeared on Blue Peter, he said "Ouch! Get off me foot!" - Lulu hadn't in fact trodden on his foot, but John pretended she had because he knew this would get laughs.

"Get Down Shep" - his boisterous dog usually accompanied him on TV

"At this level, the plinth on which Nelson stands overhangs the column. I found myself literally hanging from the ladder with nothing at all beneath me." - narration on Blue Peter report when he climbed up Nelson's Column in 1977 without any safety harness, in order to help clean pigeon droppings off the statue of Nelson