For those that knew John, JT, JET, Tilbrook one of many names we gave him, we lost a larger-than-life character, always fun to be around and a well-known face out and about in Kent and London.

John was born on 21st November 1938 and died a day after his 87th birthday on 22nd November 2025 having spent the previous six and half years housebound following a stroke on 31st March 2019. Growing up in Eltham John was the oldest of four brothers and survived only by his youngest brother Peter, who like John never married or had children. John was a clever lad, he excelled at school and in turn worked his way up through the ranks to be responsible for import and export of Wines and Spirits at Tilbury docks, a job that won’t surprise some of us. He did his stint at national service in Cyprus which apparently, he could’ve avoided but felt it his duty and was able to see various species of bird that would be new to him. Unfortunately, armed with a rifle he couldn’t use binoculars for birding as that wasn’t a part of his role or duty at the time. After a lengthy period of employment at the docks and change in times with their use, redundancy struck but John being John didn’t stress too much about having no job and spent a year birding. During that year he went to Kenya with Bryan Bland amongst others camping for a month and was pleased to have an early morning tick from his tent when Bryan announced, ‘anyone need Lion as a tick’. John unzipped the tent and sure enough Lion was ‘safely’ added to his life list. When John decided it was time to return to working, he secured employment at the foreign office where he worked until the American Coot turned up midweek in Kent in 1996 and that was the catalyst for him applying for early retirement.

Personally, I first recall meeting John in 1982 at Cliffe marshes, one of his favourite haunts and invariably saw him at Elmley or Dungeness. Many will recall JT’s catchphrases, some not repeatable here which would often reduce others to tears of laughter, at times having to leave the hide or walk away from the crowd to avoid disturbing the birds. John was the master of the quick reply and double entendres, had his own nick names for birds and indeed birders, I’m sure others wouldn’t be offended if I wrote some examples here, they were his friends and knew John well. One day, Chris Gibbard on entering Southfleet hide at Elmley absolutely drenched from a thunderstorm said to the hide full of people, it’s raining out there ‘thus the name The meteorologist’ was born, whereas the late Dave Yates was ‘the Midnight Cowboy’ as he had a habit of phoning very late at night.

I could write a book about John, but I’ll attempt to condense those reams of paper into a few stories some of which you may remember or was present at the time. John's other regular crew members were Gary Howard, James Hunter and the late Mike Cottrell who he spent so much time birding with, and they became a formidable double act in the field. Whatever the weather John would be out, usually somewhere in Kent often on long walks simply enjoying being outdoors. Tales of John losing his tooth crown whilst out in the field and a search party to relocate it, humorous jokes along the causeway at Bough Beech often with the late Roy Coles, cursing his equipment when it let him down. John never had much luck with tripods, in particular ‘the Dunnock’ a name he coined for a troublesome tripod which was often the object of abuse, shouting and being constantly rebuilt after being shaken so much. On holidays to Scotland or Cornwall with the late John Willis and other friends they’d regularly sleep in bus shelters much to the amusement of commuters in the morning queuing up for a bus whilst John and others brewed up a cup of tea on a primus with their breakfast. Times were different back then and they lived the dream of birding whenever and wherever they could improve their skills in birding identification and bus stop etiquette.

Birding pretty much dictated Johns’ life and I like many was fortunate enough to spend plenty of time with him from Dungeness to Land End, Land’s End to Hermaness on Unst, the Shetlands as well as overseas. For more than twenty-five years I birded with John most weekends together with holidays to Papua New Guinea, Ethiopia, Sri Lanka, Brazil, Guyana and our last foreign tour together to India to see Tigers and the Taj Mahal amongst other Indian delights. He simply loved birding, travel, natural history and India especially a country he visited several times and enjoyed the sights, sounds, cuisine and hospitality of the people. Teach yourself Hindi was the last book John ever bought and was a distraction from being unable to get out birding and again aligned with his love for India as a country and languages.

John was an exceptional birder in the field and highly respected for his attention to detail and identification, a committee member of the KOS serving as a voting member on the rarity panel for five years and a species writer for KBR for many years where again his attention to detail was borne out. Given a chance John would be out birding as often as he could even for a walk locally or his favoured trio of sites for many years, Bough Beech, New Hythe or Cliffe. Often lamenting on changes in bird populations locally and internationally he was fortunate enough to recall Whinchats, Redstarts, Wood Warblers, Willow Tits breeding in Kent still in good numbers, species that in later years he enthused at seeing them sadly only as passage migrants now. As we lost some species, we gained others with changes in populations and status of some species in Kent, yet he never lost the thrill off seeing a Mediterranean Gull, Peregrine or a Hawfinch, one of his favourites.

John was very adept in the field and found some excellent rarities in Kent together with being involved with the first record for the Western Palearctic of Savannah Sparrow in 1982 at Portland, Dorset with Steve Broyd. Closer to home John found a Whiskered Tern at Stodmarsh in 1987, Ring-billed Gull from a moving car on entering the car park at Lade in 1994 and was often with me when we found birds in Kent whilst out birding including a Great Reed Warbler at Lydd in 2007, Icterine Warbler at Bishopstone in 2015. John was extremely well read and was always up for a new challenge, therefore with the constantly evolving taxonomy of Gulls and in turn their identification we regularly went out birding to improve our skills, often with mixed success. We were also fortunate to spend so much time looking together searching for raptors in Kent or scouring costal sites for migrants which was at times very rewarding.

John will certainly be remembered for his cheeky smile, jokes, lack of patience at times; especially when sea watching and his olive oil sandwiches, ‘yes’ just olive oil on bread and a banana that was carefully placed on the dashboard of the car to warm up in the sun pre consumption, he was very much a creature of habit! John had a nigh on seamless period of birding from his early years on trips to the coast with his parents and brothers in the late 1940’s to Deal and other costal sites, Dartford and Stone Marshes in the 1950’s, plus extensive travel the length and breadth of the UK and overseas until our last time out birding together on 30th March 2019 in East Kent a day before he had his stroke which severely affected his mobility.

As someone that pretty much did what he wanted when he wanted, his love of birds, birding, being with friends, laughing, fine wines, literature and foreign languages it must have been a huge shock to no longer be able to get out and about. I remember receiving a text from John saying his highlight of the year was a Black Redstart on a neighbours roof he could see from his house and he was always aware of what was about even if he couldn’t get there himself.

Birding in Kent is simply not the same now JT has gone, I’m sure many of us miss him chuckling, the smile on his face whilst birding and his embracing of all things natural, not just birds. John was fortunate to have made so many friends in Kent and further afield having travelled to all the continents except Antarctica and on visiting the Birdfair could rekindle some of those friendships, memories and stories from the seventies forward to present time.

Barry Wright