John Jochimsen

JOHNJOCHIMSEN PhotojournalistThe son of a Times newspaper journalist, John Jochimsen was born in 1929 in London where he witnessed the Depression and saw out the war with his mother while his father continued to work on Fleet Street.He left school at 16 to join the government’s Colonial Film Unit, then part of the Ministry of Information, moving to its successor, the Central Office of Information after National Service and a period with the News of the World. John’s progress was rapid. By his early 20s, he was trusted with high-profile and sometimes dangerous assignments as Britain struggled to hold her colonies together and the end of Empire approached. He covered Princess Elizabeth and the Duke of Edinburgh’s honeymoon tour to Kenya in 1952 when her father the King died and she became Queen. During this four-month tour of East Africa and the Sudan, he also witnessed the start of the Mau Mau uprising. He captured political struggle and civil unrest in Malaya, Singapore, Borneo and Sarawak where he lived with the head-hunting Dyak tribes and became involved with the pirates of Borneo. Other tours took him to Malta, Cyprus and LiberiaIn the UK, John went behind the scenes at military installations for the Ministry of Defence, gaining a privileged view of the armed forces at work and compiling a stunning, unique portfolio. Major industrial and commercial contracts followed his move into freelancing and the establishment of a London studio in the 60s. His pictures regularly appeared in international magazines, including Paris Match. Over the years John photographed countless world leaders and royalty, including Haile Selassie, Winston Churchill, Soviet premiers Khrushchev and Bulganin, US Presidents Jimmy Carter and Ronald Reagan with his wife Nancy, Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, The Queen and Queen Mother, the Shah of Persia and King Hussein of Jordan.John published a war-time adventure and romance, King’s Flight in 2010 before releasing his memoirs 80 Years Gone In a Flash in 2011. His latest book, is a picture anthology, Through the Lens of a Photojournalist (2013).Retiring at 67 to a farm in Slinfold, West Sussex, John, now 84, lives in nearby Southwater where he has been a Sussex police volunteer for more than 16 years.John is widowed and has two daughters, Sally and Jane (also a published author, living in Rudgwick, West Sussex) and two sons, Paul and Rob.