John Cooke: A Brief Biography

Born in Oxford, John spent the war in Connecticut through the generosity of Yale University faculty families.
Resuming his education in England in 1944, he went first to the Dragon School in Oxford, and then on to Shrewsbury.  

 After two years military service in the Royal Navy, where he trained as a pilot in the Fleet Air Arm, he went up to Oxford, reading zoology at Merton College.  After winning a Christopher Welch Research Scholarship, he joined the zoology faculty as a Departmental Demonstrator, and remained teaching at Oxford for over eight years.

His primary research interests focused on arachnids (spiders and their allies) and on filming and the development of new techniques for photomacrography.  Following an interlude in New York as curator of arachnids at the American Museum of Natural History he returned to England as a director of Oxford Scientific Films Ltd. the company renowned for its innovative wildlife documentaries and special effects for television and feature films.

In 1983 John left OSF and returned to New York as a freelance photographer and film consultant, specializing in high-speed (stop-motion) photography.  Moving to Berkeley, California in 1986, he became increasingly involved with the island of Bali, ultimately founding with his wife the Bali Children’s Project, a tax-exempt charity helping disadvantaged village children get an education.   The BCP has continued to grow and now runs many programs, including the creation of twelve kindergartens and preschools, two children's gamelan orchestras, a micro-investment project, and a women's business cooperative.  It supports over one hundred children and has recently initiated a sex-education program, focusing on HIV/AIDS
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Following the purchase of property in France, John has spent several years renovating ancient stone buildings, including the remains of a XI^th Century château and an early XV^th Century riverside tithe-barn.  

For several years he has helped his wife, Joyce Wallace Scott, in writing:
  EnTWINed: Echoes from the Silent World of Judith Scott.  This is the definitive account of the life of her twin sister, Judith Scott, who after thirty-five years confinement in a state institution with Down Syndrome and undiagnosed but profound deafness, emerged to become a world famous artist.

John has also been editing the complete wartime correspondence that passed between his parents in Oxford and his American foster parents in Connecticut (Safekeeping: echoes from a vanished world).  He is currently engaged in writing his memoirs (Anecdotage) under the title Sublime Lunacy.  

He divides his time between France (masonry, gardening, writing and good living), Bali (The Children's Project, archaeology and natural history) and the mountains of northern California (writing and skiing).