From hardship came happiness

Pat Ashworth speaks with Chesterfield based retired Colonel John Doody about his inspiring life, from a diffiult childhood to overcoming diversity and finding happiness

There is a determination in every fiber of Colonel John Doody’s being. His motto is Carpe Diem Seize the Day – and in publishing his life story, From Stripes to Stars, he wants to send out the message that anything is possible and achievable in life, no matter what background you come from.

He had a tough start. Born in Ilkley and brought up in Wharfedale, he was sent away to The Royal Hospital School, an austere boarding school run by a naval charity when his mother contracted TB. He didn’t see either of his parents again for four years, a time he describes as ‘a bleak, unsettled period when I was shuttled between school and various people’s houses, and none of them was my home.’

His parents barely communicated with each other, and with the eventual departure of his father – a former radio officer in the Merchant Navy who suffered from shellshock - his mother was unable to cope and handed him over to grandparents.

‘At home, nobody thought I was special,’ he says. ‘They saw me like an unwanted object, a waste of space, and I saw myself that way too. Failing the 11+ exam made it worse.’

It was a miserable childhood by anyone’s standards. The school felt like a prison: the diet was inadequate; he made no friends; he endured initiation rites and was constantly bullied. The sport was the only thing he was good at: he loved sailing and he sang in the chapel choir. His father, who had given the school permission to beat him if he transgressed, suffered a nervous breakdown and was sent to a sanatorium for electric shock treatment.