John Stapleton

Some Lesser Known Facts About John Stapleton

• John Stapleton was born and grew up in Oldham, Lancashire, United Kingdom.

• He was the best-known face of factual broadcasting in the United Kingdom.

• John didn’t enroll in any University for higher education; however, he started working at the age of 17, as a reporter with a local newspaper in North West England.

• In 1963, he joined the Oldham Evening Chronicle, a daily newspaper in Manchester. He had worked there for three years.

• In 1967, John joined Daily Sketch, the oldest national tabloid newspaper in the UK, as a staff reporter. He first joined in Manchester and then moved to London.

• John’s first job in television was behind the camera, where he worked as a researcher and script writer on the show This Is Your Life.

• From 1971 to 1975, Stapleton worked as a reporter on a Thames TV regional news magazine show titled ” Today.”

• In May 1972, he worked as a reporter for the Today program at the famous West Ham track.

• In 1975, John Stapleton joined the BBC Nationwide show as a reporter. From 1977 to 1980, he became one of the main presenters at the BBC channel.

• While working on Nationwide, John was also involved in major investigations, including council corruption in South Wales and protection rackets in Ireland.

• On the BBC, John hosted various one-off light entertainment shows, including the Miss United Kingdom beauty pageant (1979).

• From 1980 to 1983, he worked as a reporter on BBC’s Panorama and Newsnight programs, where he reported from trouble spots such as the Middle East and EL Salvador.

• In 1982, he worked as Newsnight’s correspondent in Argentina during the Falklands War.

• While working at the BBC News, Stapleton’s interview with the British former Prime Minister James Callaghan was one of the contributors to the BBC interview series.

• In 1983, Stapleton left BBC News and joined TV-am.

• From 1983 to 1985, he worked as a reporter and presenter on the TV-am show Good Morning Britain.

• In 1986, John rejoined the BBC and worked on the BBC One peak-time consumer program, Watchdog. His wife also co-hosted the show. In the same year, he worked as a show presenter for the BBC’s Breakfast Time.

  

• In 1993, John joined the ITV channel and hosted a live morning talk show titled The Time, The Place. In the same year, he worked on the ITV Sunday morning program My Favourite Hymns, in which he interviewed UK celebrities of different backgrounds.

• In 1997, Stapleton, along with Trevor McDonald, presented a live Monarchy Debate in front of 3000 people at Birmingham’s National Exhibition Center.

• In 1998, he joined ITV’s program GMTV as a Newshour presenter and anchored many major news stories.

• In 2003, John covered the war in Iraq and conducted interviews with various political party leaders, including the then Prime Minister Tony Blair.

• In 2004, got the Royal Television Society’s News Presenter of the Year for his work on the GMTV channel for covering the 2003 war in Iraq.

• In 2010, John joined the newly founded ITV Breakfast show titled Daybreak and worked as its Special Correspondent. He also worked as a part-time presenter of the show.

• Along with working as a journalist, John worked in radio and also wrote for some newspapers.

• In an interview, Stapleton mentioned that when he was young, he was diagnosed with anorexia nervosa, an eating disorder. He added that he had only one fully functional kidney.

• In 1971, John met his wife, Lynn Faulds Wood, in a pub where she worked as a bartender. It was the same restaurant where they had their wedding reception in 1977.

  

• In 1991, his wife was diagnosed with third-stage bowel cancer. However, she survived that but was later diagnosed with skin cancer. In 2020, she suffered a heart stroke and died.

• In 2024, Stapleton announced that he had been diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease. He added that he initially noticed a tremor and consulted a doctor. The doctor initially suspected it was benign essential tremor; however, he later confirmed it as Parkinson’s disease. As part of the 2009 Parkinson’s disease society campaign, Stapleton pledged to donate his brain to Parkinson’s research after his death.

• On 21 September 2025, after complications from pneumonia and related to Parkinson’s condition, he died in a hospital near his home.

•  In an interview, John Stapleton mentioned that he was a lifelong fan of Manchester City Football Club. He added that in the 1950s, his father often took him to see Sir Stanley Matthews play for Blackpool against the team at their old Maine Road ground.