Episode 56 - John Siddons

John Siddons was born in Switzerland, but lived most of his early life in the UK. He got his degree in French Language and Literature from University of Grenoble in France and served in the Royal Marine Force Voluntary Service from 1958 to 1961. At one point his bio says he “Introduced the King of Saudi Arabia to the concept of high value thematic gifts” in the mid 1970s. He says he was later responsible for equipping a number of palaces in the Middle East with banqueting items of glass, china, silver, and gold. His business dealings in that part of the world came crashing down when the Gulf War began in 1990...and that’s pretty much where we’re going to begin.

We came across John a while back when he was visiting the station - turns out he used to be All Things Considered host here at WGCU when the station was first built on the Florida Gulf Coast University campus - that’s when what used to be WSFP turned into WGCU. We got to talking and Richard and I gave each other a look that meant we knew John was eventually gonna join us in studio.