John was bequeathed from his grandfather, Edward Woodbridge, his collection of coins in which he had taken an interest as a small child.  Financial necessity in the early years of marriage meant that some of these had to be sold and others spent to pay for day-to-day living, but the collection of silver crowns was always sacrosanct. 

When money became more plentiful later in life, the collection was expanded and can be considered in two parts-
a) He made a special study of the crowns of Edward VI- cataloguing the many small variations.  A young Peter and Karen accompanied him for a specially arranged private visit to the British Museum to see what variants they had (Dad was proud that his collection had more!)
b) A crown from each monarch for whom one was minted (with the exception of one short lived king of which few ever existed and are therefore at totally silly prices) from the first in 1551 when Edward VI attempted to give renewed confidence in the English currency (after Henry VIII debased it) until Elizabeth II.

A crown was worth 5 shillings in old money, 25p post decimalisation, but the silver content alone means they are worth rather more than that!

Immediately post Christmas 2011, Sheila was ill in bed for many days; John was panicking and needed to be distracted.  Peter assisted him to scan the obverse and reverse of all his coins and then encouraged him to document the collection using Blurb software to produce a limited number of books for family members.

Earlier he had written his first novel "A Tale of a Silver Coin- uneasy lies"; this is an imaginary story which attempts to link some famous historical episodes by postulating a particular silver crown piece just happened to be involved as it passed from hand to hand throughout history from the Spanish Armada to the Dockers' strike in the 20th century.

John also tried his hand at a murder mystery, "Barbara's Husband" set against the backdrop of the Second World War.  This took many years to write due  the Biblical translations taking priority.  It draws upon his childhood in London during the war and seems to include more than one auto-biographical reference.