Film-maker John Black who became staunch defender of park

Published: 20 August, 2010
by PETER GRUNER

HE was an Upper Holloway film-maker and campaigner who helped shape the early acting careers of Andrew Sachs and TV presenter Keith Chegwin.

But John Black’s lasting legacy will be a historical and literary website he created about his beloved 410-acre Regent’s Park and Primrose Hill.

Friends and family this week paid tribute to John, from Beversbrook Road, who died of cancer at Marie Curie Hospice in Hampstead, aged 78. He was a socialist, peace activist and devoted father of Martin and Lucy, and proud grand­father of Harry. 

John was born in Hong Kong, where his father, Accountant General for the colony, was interned by the Japanese during the war. He died four years after it ended.

John came to London in search of work and became a movie editor, meeting up with a young Kevin Brownlow, the film historian, who was  doing similar work. 

John went on to make films with partner Matt McCarthy for the award-winning Children’s Film Foundation, a non-profit making organisation which ceased operation in 1985.

Among its feature films was Robin Hood Junior, made in 1974 and starring a young Andrew Sachs, now best known as the waiter Manuel in Fawlty Towers. Sachs played Friar, and an even younger actor, Keith Chegwin, was Robin.

John’s widow Maggie, from Wedmore Street, a former film production secretary whom he met in 1959, said that movies were his life until he retired and devoted himself to local history. 

“There was an intricate four-book study of his family history going back to 1822,” she said. “But his real passion was his website, which celebrates Regent’s Park and Primrose Hill. 

“He would go out each morning and walk through the park for three to four hours to gain inspiration. He spent many hours each week researching the area, always coming up with new literary and musical associations.”

He first got to know the park in the 1950s, when he was living near Baker Street with his late sister, Jennifer. It became a favourite place for them to walk. 

He decided to write an essay about some of their favourite  spots to commemorate her death. The piece was intended for family and friends, but when John assembled the material he thought it might be of interest to others.

His website claims Primrose Hill as the inspiration for the Beatles song Fool on the Hill. And one of his favourite writers was Elizabeth Bowen, who lived at Clarence Terrace, near Baker Street. An air-raid warden in the 1940s, she wrote: “I had always placed this park among the most civilised scenes on earth.”

John himself wrote of Bowen: “No writer has evoked Regent’s Park more frequently, more perceptively or more lovingly.”

But he was also aware of the threats to the park. He wrote on the website: “The competing pressures on this wonderful asset are multiplying, and increasingly difficult to reconcile. Developers and traffic are continually threatening parts of the park which, if lost, are gone forever.”

Malcolm Kafetz, chairman of Friends of Regent’s Park, described John as a “real gentleman”, who with his knowledge and enthusiasm for the subject had an ability to bring local history alive. 

“His talks were always colourful and extremely well received and we shall miss him,” he said.

John left his body for medical research. A celebration of his life was held at Regent’s College in Regent’s Park last month.