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Who is Lynn Faulds Wood’s husband John Stapleton? BBC Watchdog presenter diagnosed with Parkinson’s
Plus where you may have seen their son on TV
TV presenter Lynn Faulds Wood and John Stapleton found fame presenting Watchdog in the eighties.
Four year after Lynn sadly passed away on April 24, 2020, her husband has opened up about his Parkinson's diagnosis.
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John Stapleton is an English journalist and broadcaster best known for his work presenting and reporting across the BBC and ITV.
He found fame alongside his late wife Lynn Faulds Wood presenting BBC's Watchdog from 1986 until 1993.
John was born in Oldham, Lancashire, on February 24, 1946.
He studied A-levels but rather than going to university, chose to go into journalism.
John's career
Stapleton started working as a trainee reporter at the age of seventeen 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.
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John joined BBC's 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, including the Middle East and El Salvador, as a correspondent on the BBC's Panorama and Newsnight programmes.
What is Parkinson's and what are the main symptoms?
He worked at TV-am as a presenter of Good Morning Britain from 1983 to 1985.
In 1986, John rejoined the BBC, where he presented the popular consumer programme Watchdog until 1993, alongside his late wife Lynn.
In 1993, he 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 joined ITV breakfast programme GMTV as a presenter of Newshour.
In 2010, John joined Daybreak as their special correspondent and moved on to Good Morning Britain, where he remained until July 2015.
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John Stapleton and late wife Lynn Faulds Wood were a dream team TV couple
John and Lynn's marriage
Lynn and John first crossed paths 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.
He has his own successful broadcasting career, working on Internet Scammers and podcast Scam Clinic.
Sadly, Lynn passed away on April 24 , 2020, at Charing Cross Hospital in London after suffering a stroke.
She was 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".
He said: "It's a classic symptom of Parkinson's apparently, I'm going to keep taking the tablets and hope it gets better."
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: and
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