About

John Michael Franklin

John Michael Franklin was born in Yorkshire in 1952 to a mother suffering from severe mental illness and a largely absent father. His parents divorced when John was only an infant and whilst his mother was incapable of caring for him his father was unwilling to, rejecting both John and his younger sister Susan. At this point children’s charity Barnardo’s stepped in raising and supporting them all the way to adulthood.

It was during his time at Barnardo’s that John first met Judy and Arthur Banister. The young couple became sponsors of John and Susan spending many happy hours with them on weekend adventures and crucially replacing some much missed parental affection. They became significant figures in John’s adult life, a constant loving presence throughout many demanding periods.

It was the gift of a concertina for his ninth birthday that sparked John’s interest in music. Despite having had no previous tuition he immediately took to the instrument playing it competently by ear within a fortnight. He also discovered a particular talent for improvisation. This led to a more formal musical education in piano and violin financed by the couple and by Barnardo’s. Eventually concentrating on the piano, John studied up to diploma level.

A lifetime of playing followed but it wasn’t until a profound encounter at the age of sixty-two, that he first thought about composing. John met someone who as a young man he’d met just once before, forty years earlier, someone he thought would become the love of his life.

John felt an overwhelming desire to connect to this man and remarkably an overwhelming compulsion to compose.

The result is IMAGINEM.