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Big L DJ John Edward, known on Radio City as Johnny Flux Chris and I first met John at the Big L '97 Reunion dinner in Clacton and gave him a lift to the 'Summer of Love' dance afterwards. John's Knees Club nickname ' Purpleknees' came about after he signed his name John Purpleknees Edward on a letter that he sent me from the Galaxy in 1966. He said he had recalled a childhood scrape when his mum had applied gentian violet to a knee wound and changed the colour of his patella to purple. John presented many of Radio London's onshore gigs and particularly recalled introducing Stevie Wonder at Billy Walker's Uppercut Club in London, while wearing a hired, blue suit! We last saw John at a gathering in 2017 to celebrate Radio London's birthday. Fans of the Fab Forty will be well aware of the major contribution that John made to the Oldies Project recordings of the charts. John was very proud of his input to the programmes and would have been pleased to know that the Oldies Project team intends to continue to air his voice on the weekly shows, on Sunday mornings, 1100 GMT, repeated Wednesday evenings 1800 GMT. The original feature in The Sun newspaper that alerted us to the sad news of the John's death (unfortunately, mistakenly stating that he had died in August, when it should have been October) was followed up in the paper by the news of a campaign to save John's creation Metal Mickey by actors Gary Shail and Lucinda Freeman. Between 1980 and 1983, the pair co-starred with Mickey in his popular LWT TV show. Since his creator's demise, Mickey had continued to reside at John's flat, which landlordshad been refusing permission for anyone to access. Fortunately, access to the flat was gained eventually and Mickey is now safely installed at the offices of The Sun. The paper says, "There has already been interest from producers who want to make a reboot or he could be moved to a museum." John had been hoping to revive Mickey's career and would have been very happy to know that he has been rescued.. Mickey was regarded as a member of the Edward family and John and his late wife Sue would send greeting cards signed from the three of them. In recent years, John sent us this Christmas card. John's own photo of his patellae Bob le Roi has posted on his website the fascinating full story of John's career in music, radio and TV. |
A report of John's Funeral
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