John Stapleton has died at the age of 79 from Parkinson’s disease, which was complicated by pneumonia
Polite and dignified to the end, John Stapleton certainly didn’t need to reply to emails in his final days.
We had been discussing a follow up interview about his Parkinson’s disease and I had hoped to call him last week, to discuss his health and the fortunes of our beloved Manchester City.
But his reply wasn’t a happy one.
“I’m afraid you might have missed your chance, I’m in hospital at the moment. Best, John.”
I carried on with my day, hoping we would get to speak again in a few weeks instead, and even went to Manchester that evening to watch City beat Napoli. John would have enjoyed that.
But it would have been the last game he got to watch as we learned he died this morning, leaving me shocked and saddened.
I didn’t know John that well but I had only ever heard good things about him during his career at BBC and ITV from colleagues like Susanna Reid.
READ MORE: John Stapleton dead: GMTV and Watchdog legend dies at 79
And speaking to him last October it was clear he was an experienced journalist and able to give me all the soundbites and quotes I needed with ease, even as he was working on improving his speech. A few days earlier he has announced he was battling Parkinson’s disease.
But he was upbeat and not about to let it hold him back. At the time he told me: “You can’t escape these things as you grow older, these kinds of developments are sort of inevitable. You learn to live with it, get on with it and try to be as positive as you can.
“Parkinson’s is not going to go away, so learn to live with it. I take the best advice I can from my neurologist, from my speech therapist, and get on with it.”
John was having weekly sessions with a speech therapist to ensure he could still communicate well after his speech showed signs of deteriorating.
And that allowed him to look back over his career when we spoke last year, and he was clearly happy and rightly proud of his brilliant career.
He said: “I had a wonderful time. I’ve worked for the BBC, I worked for ITV, and there’s been a few ups and downs but, overall, I’ve been very lucky.
“I worked on Nationwide, on Panorama, on Newsnight. I did the chat show The Time, The Place. I did Watchdog with Lynn, which used to get six, seven million viewers a week.
“Then, of course, GMTV. I had 17 years of getting up at half past three or quarter to four and doing breakfast television with the lovely Penny Smith, Eammon, Fiona Phillips and Lorraine Kelly. We had a great time.
“I learned things in local newspapers, who did what, when, how and why. That stuff never left me. As a friend once said, ‘you made this tiny bit of talent stretch a long way’.”
He was being modest of course. No one has a career of over 50 years without huge talent and warmth on screen as the tributes coming in from former colleagues prove.
I’m really sad and sorry we didn’t get to have that final call.