The most recent marathon was held on 28 April 2013, which started and finished at Longford Park in Stretford.
He was baptised into the Roman Catholic Church at St Ann's, Stretford, and educated at the parish school between 1928 and 1939.
John's parentage is not known for sure, but it seems certain that he was of the family of De la Bere from Stretford Manor in Herefordshire and Weobley Castle in Glamorgan.
Stretford | Paul Stretford | Stretford, Herefordshire | St Ann's, Stretford |
He attended Stretford Elementary School in Stretford near Manchester, which he left at the age of 11 to become an apprentice instrument maker at a local engineering firm where he first joined his union, the Amalgamated Engineering Union (AEU).
On Friday 8 July 2011 Stretford High School pupils in conjunction with Sir Bobby Charlton and Dickie Bird MBE unveiled blue plaques dedicated to Tommy Taylor and Duncan Edwards, two of the Busby Babes who lived in the locality and died in the Munich Air Crash.
He later spent two years at the Stretford Technical College, opposite Lancashire County Cricket Club's ground and about half a mile from Old Trafford.