TV presenter Lynn Faulds Wood sadly passed away on April 24, 2020, at the age of 72 after a stroke.
Her husband and fellow broadcaster John has now opened up about his Parkinson’s diagnosis. Here’s what we know.
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John Stapleton is an English journalist and broadcaster best known for his work presenting and reporting on ITV breakfast television including TV-am, GMTV and Daybreak.
He is also famous for presenting Watchdog for the BBC alongside his late wife Lynn Faulds Wood.
John was born in Oldham, Lancashire on 24 February 1946, this makes him 74.
He went to Diggle Primary School and Hulme Grammar School, Oldham and St John’s College of Further Education, Manchester where he studied his A levels.
John’s career
Stapleton started working as a trainee reporter at the age of seventeen rather than going to university, on the Eccles and Patricroft Journal.
He later worked at the Oldham Evening Chronicle for three years before moving to the Daily Sketch in Manchester and then in London.
John’s first job in TV was as a researcher and script writer on This is Your Life.
He then worked as a reporter on the Thames TV regional news show Today from 1971 until 1975.
John joined BBC Nationwide in 1975 as a reporter, and then became one of the main hosts from 1977 until 1980.
From 1980 until 1983, he was reporting from trouble spots such as the Middle East and El Salvador as a correspondent on the BBC’s Panorama and Newsnight programmes.
From 1983 to 1985, he worked at TV-am as presenter of Good Morning Britain.
What is Parkinson’s and what are the main symptoms?
In 1986, John rejoined the BBC, where he presented the popular consumer programme Watchdog until 1993, alongside his late wife Lynn Faulds Wood.
In 1993, Stapleton returned to ITV to host live morning talk show The Time, The Place, and for four years he presented My Favourite Hymns.
In 1998, he then joined ITV breakfast programme GMTV as a presenter of Newshour.
In 2010 John joined Daybreak as their Special Correspondent and then onto Good Morning Britain where he remained until July 2015.
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John and Lynn’s marriage
Lynn and John first crossed paths back in 1971 when she was working in a pub in Richmond upon Thames.
They tied the knot in 1977 and lived in London together.
Their son Nick Stapleton was born in 1987 and has followed in their footsteps and has his own successful broadcasting career.
Lynn passed away on 24 April, 2020 at the Charing Cross Hospital in London of a stroke aged 72.
Parkinson’s diagnosis
John revealed on Monday, October 21, 2024 that he had been diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease.
He appeared on Morning Live with his son Nick where he opened up about the illness.
Nick explained that they had noticed that John “wasn’t walking as confidently and he had this tremor in his hand” which led them to go to the doctors where he received his diagnosis.
John talked about his symptoms saying he was experiencing “continuous exhaustion and lack of energy”.
“It’s a classic symptom of Parkinson’s apparently, I’m going to keep taking the tablets and hope it gets better,” he said.
Everything you need to know about Parkinson’s
Parkinson’s is a progressive neurological condition, meaning that it causes problems in the brain and gets worse over time.
It affects around 153,000 people in the UK.
People with Parkinson’s don’t have enough of the chemical dopamine because some of the nerve cells that make it have stopped working.
This can cause a range of more than 40 symptoms, but the three main ones are:
- Tremor (shaking)
- Slow movement
- Rigidity (muscle stiffness)
Other common signs include:
- Mild memory and thinking problems
- Trouble sleeping
- Issues with balance
- Pain
- Anxiety and depression
- Shuffling walk with very small steps
- Difficulty making facial expressions
- Loss of sense of smell
- Problems peeing
- Constipation
The four main ways of managing Parkinson’s include medication, staying active, exploring occupational therapy, physical therapy and speech and language therapy, and monitoring symptoms.
Source: Parkinson’s UK and NHS
