My father, John Jordan, who has died aged 74 after a long illness, was a sound recordist on many television programmes, including Blue Peter and the Morecambe and Wise show, in the 1960s and 70s. He also worked on Stanley Kubrick’s A Clockwork Orange (1971), which was nominated for a Bafta for sound.
He was born in Hertfordshire to Ruth and Cecil Jordan, both social workers. After boarding at Ackworth school, in Yorkshire, he was offered several university places but opted to do a four-year sandwich course with Siemens, based in Woolwich, south London. He then went to work as an electrical engineer for Livingston Laboratories, which also ran a small documentary film company called Livingston Studios, based in Barnet, north London. This was where John learned how to light, compose, record, mix and edit. It sparked a passion for film, in particular the magic of sound.
John was soon in demand for all sorts of television programmes. He worked on documentary films, such as the Investiture of the Prince of Wales in 1969 and a film about Edward Heath, then prime minister, racing his boat, Morning Cloud. He also worked with the singer James Taylor and with the Beatles. But we three boys, his sons, were more interested in his stories of hanging out of helicopters with John Noakes of Blue Peter over Salisbury Plain.
One of his favourite assignments was recording Beethoven’s opera Fidelio in the Theater an der Wien in 1970, with the conductor Leonard Bernstein. He often talked about hearing every creak made by footsteps on the stage in this old building. The programme was awarded an Emmy.
After his achievements with Kubrick on A Clockwork Orange, John was approached by Staffordshire University to set up and run a department of audio/visual communication. He was an inspirational and much loved teacher and mentor. His philosophy was never to tell students what to do or think – but to let them discover things for themselves.
When John arrived in Staffordshire he enlisted the support of the university and the British film industry to found Stoke Film theatre. It continues to flourish, the only self-financing regional film theatre in Britain. Last year it celebrated its 40th anniversary.
John was a life-long Quaker. In retirement he oversaw the restoration of a 17th-century listed Quaker Meeting House in Leek, Staffordshire.
He is survived by his wife, Grace, his sons, Andrew, Daniel and me, and his four grandchildren.
