Apparently he had been waiting at one exit, our highly competent researcher Christine Whittaker at another, and neither had realised that there are two ways of leaving Moor Park station. John was plainly not a happy man. I bought him a large drink — but it made no difference. No good expecting him to tell us about plasterwork and murals while he was in this state. Perhaps best to switch the schedule round, and film him on the golf course first? It might lighten the mood.
It didn't. When we got to the tee he was still fuming. In reality no mean golfer, he took a massive swing — and missed the ball completely. Turning to camera, his black mood instantly forgotten, he laughed and laughed. With great presence of mind cameraman John McGlashan went on filming, and a magical, accidental moment was captured.

Chance, you see, played a certain part with John. And so it was at The Orchard, Charles Annesley Voysey's apparently simple and deeply sympathetic Arts and Crafts house at Chorleywood. John loved The Orchard, and he had known the Voyseys. For the piece to camera, our plan was that he would read from The Tale of Mrs Tittlemouse, by Beatrix Potter, lines which he said reminded him of the interior here:

Such a funny house! There were yards and yards of sandy passages, leading to storerooms and nut-cellars, all amongst the roots of the hedge. There was a kitchen, a parlour, a pantry and a larder . . .

If you look carefully at the sequence in Metro-land you can see that John is carrying a little book, a Beatrix Potter I borrowed from my small children. But when the time came for the piece to camera, John, in mid-flow about Mr Voysey, ignoring script and rehearsal, was suddenly struck by how deceptively low the interior was, and how he could show this by moving across the hall to stand under a low doorframe — which he did, to the cameraman's considerable surprise. And Mrs Tittlemouse was forgotten.

No two takes of his pieces to camera were ever the same, or even similar. Improvisation was always a part of John's performance — thinking aloud, and not just repeating a script by rote. It is one of the reasons why his work seems always fresh.

He revelled in the poetry of film-making, particularly film-lighting language — Gennies and Blondes and Redheads, Pups and Bashers, Brutes and French Flags, Barn Doors, Baby Legs and Inky-Dinkies. He enjoyed being on terms with the crew, nicknaming our rather high-minded cameraman "The Bishop". At lunchtimes and in the early evenings we gathered around the Master in a Metro-land pub, hearing him tell of his younger days, of being sent down from Oxford for failing his Divinity exam, of his career as a prep-school master and as a cricket coach who knew nothing of the rules of the game. And although we were in the visual business, he taught us how to observe. "Look up!" was his great maxim — all the excitement and joy of architecture is up there, above eye-level.