The death of John Brown on 10th April was a huge loss, not only to his family and his colleagues and students in Lansdowne Road, but to the Alexander profession. He was a profound and dedicated teacher of the Technique and we are all made poorer by his passing.

John was born and grew up in Bangor, Co Down, in Northern Ireland. Following university, he became a social worker and spent time as a youth worker in the deeply deprived area of West Belfast. His first encounter with the Technique was because of sciatica; but its wider implications crystallised many of his ideas about the intractable social and individual problems he was meeting in his work: If individuals cannot use themselves properly, the effects will be reflected in the society to which they belong.

John decided to train as an Alexander teacher and joined Chris Stevens’ school in Aalborg in Denmark. This course closed after two years and he came to the Constructive Teaching Centre (CTC) in 1991 and completed his training with Walter and Dilys Carrington. John particularly felt the strength and value of the close connection with Alexander whose writings were the indispensible source on which he based his own teaching.

Over the years John gradually took on increasing teaching and administrative responsibilities in the CTC. He worked as a guest teacher in Barcelona and Madrid, and represented the CTC at international congresses. His work on the regular refresher and post-graduate courses at the CTC made him known and valued by an ever-increasing number of teachers in the UK and worldwide.

After Walter’s death in 2005, John took charge of the first four terms of the CTC training course. He quickly developed his ideas on how to guide new trainees. In the best Socratic tradition - though he would have roared with laughter at such a way of phrasing it - what counted for him was not what he taught the students, but what they found out for themselves - though many noted his special ability to say the exact thing they needed to hear at exactly the right moment.

John’s own teaching was distinctive in its clarity and simplicity. He became particularly noted for his work with Alexander teachers, which he often said gave him his greatest professional satisfaction. Here he conveyed the essence of what he had learned from Walter Carrington and from his own study of Alexander. He was truly a minimalist and deeply believed that it is only through an ever more profound stopping and releasing that access can be gained to the deepest benefits of the Technique. He provided a moving and practical demonstration of this by encouraging his teacher pupils to work with him right to the end of his illness.

At heart, John was a deep and serious thinker but, always unpretentious, this never interfered with his sense of fun. During his younger days, he was a surfer and guitar-player and, for a while, a goat-farmer. In his teaching he was always surrounded by laughter. He was devoted to his family, his wife, who is herself training to be an Alexander teacher, and his two children. His memory and influence endure in the flourishing CTC community of students and teachers to which he dedicated himself so generously.

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