 With his mother Eleanor he occasionally assisted Nina Layard in her searches for palaeoliths in the Ipswich area, and through her was introduced to Professor A. C. Haddon of Cambridge.She also had direct contacts with Professors William Ridgeway and McKenny Hughes, and with Wynfrid Laurence Henry Duckworth.Her companion, Mary Outram (granddaughter of Sir James Outram), was a cousin of Baron Anatole von Hügel, who was then setting up the University of Cambridge Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology at the Downing Street site, to which John later contributed largely.