John Horton

Some words from Char & Bon...

Our Dad, the legendary ex-AMV Art Director, John Horton, died last week. Which was crazy because we thought he’d live forever; in that way kids so often do about their folks. It was made extra hard as we’d been estranged for several years, which has been as confusing and as devastating and sad as it sounds.

We grew up in Adland, thanks to both our parents. Dad was the first Art Director David Abbott hired for his newly formed start-up, a little place called AMV, and Dad started there soon after we were born. It was Mum’s brother, Tim Delaney, who’d introduced our parents back in the day. Dad was Tim’s Art Director for a while, and Mum (herself a TV producer) would declare it love at first sight, and they soon ‘went into production’ making us.

Growing up, we thought everyone had uncles, aunts, and cousins who owned and ran ad agencies and production companies and had houses scattered with layout pads and D&AD pencils. Adland was our home and playground, with summers spent at AMV garden parties playing croquet with David Abbott, Stuart Baker and the gang, and running around the agency corridors pinching marker pens and layout pads.  

Before Adland beckoned, Dad had been plucked out of school early and sent off to Art School, aged only 15. This was a thrilling and fascinating discovery for us; “What, so you mean you didn’t ever have to do maths or science again, only Art? – OHMYGOSH, DREAMY,” we thought. In those days, if you had even a whiff of talent, you were funnelled towards it with great haste. Dad was a kid from a working-class family; his Dad was a Cabbie, and life was all about getting a trade and working hard. It was this early Art intervention that meant he got a good job designing beautiful book covers. And even more impressive to us, meant he could draw a perfect square or circle freehand. 

Growing up, we’d often ask him to draw pictures for us. He’d been working a lot on the Volvo account back then, and cool, fantasy cars were conjured from the depths of his mind and effortlessly put to paper for us to keep. Art, and also music, became something that connected us to him. He’d been in a band when he was young, managed by Bill Wyman no less, which gave him the air of a guy who’d probably done too much acid, and only added to his enigmatic rock star vibe. He'd taught himself to play the guitar and the saxophone and to us, he just seemed so bloody cool, man *said in a rockstar drawl*

We'd heard he’d grown up with a bit of a shit father, who, by all accounts, wasn’t very nice to his quiet, art-loving son. We don’t think Dad had ever been appropriately modelled on how a parent-child relationship should be. But Bon and I just accepted him as he was; a brilliant, somewhat bonkers, enigma, who Char could sit with for hours playing the saxophone, or teaching his infamous guitar rifts, and with Bon, creating paintings and photos as he quietly muttered his guidance. We didn’t talk like regular dads and daughters; our chat was with music and pictures. He also had the most impressive library of art and design books at home, which we’d pour over and devour, sometimes spotting his name in them. 

When we were kids, we would visit Dad and his lifelong friend and copywriter, Richard Foster, in the old AMV offices on Marylebone Road, riding the ‘terrifying’ glass elevator up to their floor after chatting to the silken-voiced Pascoe, AMV’s legendary receptionist. It was clearly a seminal time for us, watching grown adults playing pool all day and then scurrying off to messy offices to draw and write before heading to the pub seemed like an ideal career. In those days, Dad even had a little sliding wooden sign on his office door someone had made for him; it read: ‘Johhny Holiday In or Johnny Holiday Out’, signalling if he was in the office or away on one of his epic shoots. 

Back then, shoots went on for weeks and were often open-ended until the concept was nailed. (It’s amazing how much time you get to craft work when you haven’t got to land a 400-page deck.) We LOVED hearing his shoot stories about what he’d been up to, becoming, I guess, like our version of ad-themed bedtime stories. ‘The Magical Far Away Apple Tree’ – the story about finding the perfect apple for a Sainsbury’s ad was one that stood out. 

He told us about the time he and Richard were shooting some Volvo ads in Greenland. Dad had requested that all the cars flown out be made out of chrome so they’d reflect the stunning scenery he’d carefully selected. Unfortunately, when they loaded the cars off the cargo plane for the shoot, most of the car windows had been smashed in transit. Instead of giving up on the idea, Dad simply got another one flown out. Just as they were starting to shoot Dad’s epic set-up, the car now positioned floating majestically on an ice flat, it sunk, lost forever into the icy waters. This may have also been the shoot when their plane's engine caught fire, and they had to dive to put it out. This may or may not have contributed to Dad’s heavy drinking around this time, too. Ha.  

Then there was the story about needing sand for a pack shot and Dad insisting they flew out to the Sahara Desert, y’know, “to get the right kind of sand”. Or the months he’d spend with his best friend and collaborator, photographer Ken Griffith, getting the art direction of their shots just right. His dedication to the craft was such that they’d been flying in a helicopter over a dense rainforest; Ken had been leaning out to get 'the shot’, and his passport had slipped from his top pocket down into the jungle below, a place where no human had ever trod now contained a Kiwi photographer’s well-travelled passport. 

His dedication to his work and craft was insane. He missed family holidays. All the usual school stuff. Much of the everydayness of family life. We often didn’t see him for weeks on end, getting on with life with Mum completely filling the void, being an awesome Mum-Dad hybrid. Then he’d rock up from some far flung place clutching two traditional dolls from the country he’d been in. Beaded dolls from Kenya, porcelain dolls from Amsterdam, Spanish flamenco dolls, Greek dolls….we amassed quite the collection. It was thrilling to know he’d been to all these places and lovely to think he’d hunted out matching dolls to bring home to us each time. We never seemed to resent him being away so much. But we started to realise by the time we hit secondary school that not all Dads seemed quite so enigmatic and out of reach to their kids. We started to wish he could just be around more and chat to us about typical dad-daughter stuff. 

Richard (Foster) often said of Dad; "There’s a fine line between genius and madman. And I genuinely don’t know which side John is on." Which we think is the best description of Dad to date. He couldn’t be any other way than straddling this line. His work was his life; the creativity was all-consuming; in many ways, we felt like he was a bit like a famous, tortured artist who needed to be left alone to create. Only his canvases were double page spreads and 48 sheet posters. 

Every night, Dad would come home from work and settle in the corner of the living room by his library of books; whisky in hand, a frown etched deep on his face, a napkin or layout pad balanced on his knee. He was usually tackling a tricky brief or trying to solve an art direction conundrum that hadn’t been thrashed out on the pool table that day. This was one of our main and lasting images of Dad, lost in his own head, all sorts of creative and bonkers thoughts whirring around, our Dad just always slightly out of reach. 

With this kind of upbringing, I guess you could say we were destined to go into advertising too. Once, we asked him what he thought we should do when we grew up. We never forgot his reply; ‘Whatever you do, don’t go into advertising,’ he said, utterly serious. We couldn’t work out why he’d want to warn us off a job that looked so bloody great. But we think, in many ways, he was tormented by his work. Having worked in the industry ourselves for many years, - we obviously promptly ignored Dad’s advice and teamed up and got a job in an agency – we think we can see why. Sure, there’s far less fun now than there was in his heyday. But at its core, it’s still a daily battle between brain and brief, which you need to ‘crack’ before it cracks you. 

We actually ended up working alongside Dad at AMV for a few years before he retired, after we were lured in by Peter Souter, sneaking in when Dad was away on sabbatical. It was very strange getting to work on the same briefs that would make our Dad’s brow furrow. But it gave us an incredible lesson in why advertising is one of the only professions that, on day one of the job, you could be doing the same task as someone with a 30-year career behind them. You don’t go up the ranks doing harder and harder levels of ads in advertising. It’s a wonderful, unique level playing field in that way, which is why we’re passionate about inclusivity, especially around sexism, ageism, racism and ableism - everyone should get a chance in advertising. 

We never did fully reach Dad’s mad/genius mind before he died, which will forever make us sad. But we’re so grateful for the pockets he did let us into. We see his influence all around us, especially in our work and our children. All his grandkids have his most extraordinary gift when it comes to creativity. We often catch our breath when a bit of Dad’s brilliant bonkersness shows itself in one of them. Recently, one granddaughter, aged 5, declared she wants to be a ‘rock n roll vet’ when she grows up. We actually think she might achieve that.

Now we're beginning to believe Dad will live on forever after all. He lives through his grandkids' drawing skills, their left-field thinking, and their unashamed need to do things their way, and through his surviving sister, Janice, who'll miss her 'baby brother'. We wonder if we’ll give our kids the same advice he gave us and warn them off going into Adland? Let’s see... 

Love you, Dad x

Charlotte & Bonnie