Never a person to duck the limelight, my friend, Jo Hadley, was on a stage just five weeks before he died aged 60 of cancer. He had played many roles over the years, adapting from policeman on the beat in Essex to, after moving to Helsinki, university lecturer, kindergarten play leader and, in the last four years of his life, the only representative of the Fellowship of Punch and Judy puppeteers in the Nordic countries.
Born in Formby, now part of Merseyside, Jonathan was the son of Enid and Brian Hadley, a mechanical engineer. The family relocated to Southend, Essex, when Jo was a toddler and he grew up there with three brothers in a close, boisterous family.
