John Littleton

From Phil Brayford:

John was born and brought up in Weston-super-Mare and came up to Kings College, London University to study Biochemistry in 1962. We both arrived at the waterpolo club trials at the University Union pool in the September of that year as freshers, both having played the game whilst at school for our respective clubs Weston-super-Mare and Parogon. We must have impressed as we were both co-opted into the Squad immediately along with Ronnie Flude, who had just enrolled at University College on a PhD course, and attended weekly training sessions. Senior members of the team then were Trevor Lusty and Barry Turner, both of whom later joined Poly. After completing his degree course, John then embarked on a medical degree at St. Georges Hospital, then at Hyde Park Corner, so that he became a perennial student before reverting to Pharmacology as a research fellow and lecturer and later Professor at Kings College.

An important part of the training was, of course discussing tactics in the ULU Bar, then on the 1st floor served by long suffering Frank. Often, Jim Kennedy, a Gt. Britain 400 m swimmer and London University swimming club captain, joined us as he was undertaking a PhD in Geology at Kings College and became a good friend of John. At that time there were two nights per week of college matches with four competitive Leagues with five or six separate colleges or hospitals in each league. Consequently the Union Bar became our second home. He also recruited us to assist with his practical experiments on the influence of alcohol on human subjects resulting in one occasion when we were both arrested in Trafalgar Square and kept in the cells overnight at Bow Street.  He was fiercely intelligent and also cultured - introducing us to, amongst other things, Bob Dylan' s music, whilst we were frequent visitors to his home town of Weston-super-Mare.

John was always a goalkeeper, one of those masochistic types that seem to enjoy balls being hurled directly into their faces from close distance for hours on end and early on these were leather balls, often sodden with water and heavy. The big competition for us was the British Universities Federation Championships held in March and in 1963 these were held in Walsall. That year, our first for London, we lost narrowly in the final to Oxford University, the last time we were defeated in these Championships for the rest of the decade. Following this, both John and I were selected for the BUSF team for a short tour to Münster, our first experience of an international water polo tour.

Shortly afterwards, we both joined Polytechnic Swimming and Water Club, who trained Tuesday and Thursday at their own pool in Regent Street less than 100 yards north of Oxford Circus. The Poly Club was established in 1874 and had extensive use of the 25 yard pool in the basement and in 1963 had become a founder member in the inaugural season of the National Water Polo League, a breakaway from the Amateur Swimming Association that had historically governed water polo in England. At that time Poly’s team consisted of about seven players, mostly former or present international caps, but few reserves and the training sessions were sparsely attended. The influx from London University provided the Club with a young squad that regularly trained together and provided back up for the matches.

Poly’s first team goalkeeper was Neil May, an established International player for Great Britain and Poly Captain so that for many years, John acted as reserve keeper in the new National Water Polo League, but went on all the pre season European tours to Germany, Czechoslovakia and Holland that the Club organized. He also represented British Universities at the World (now FISU) Student Games at Budapest in 1965 and again in Turin in 1970.

From Peter McCartney:

He was one of a series of great goalies we had at the Poly.  Not obviously built for the role, he still tipped a lot away for a corner. He never had a temper, except with poor defenders.

All his work was with alcohol, and he worked at that late nearly every evening…

From Chris Fenn:

Very sad. I worked closely with John at Kings College while doing my PhD which he supervised. It was a great time in my life and I have always appreciated John’s help in attaining the PhD that effectively set me up for a very good career and life.

Not sure I’d heard about Phil B and Jack ending up in Bow Street prison after one of John’s experiments; but it reminded me of my own overnight stay there after a Barts WPC dinner - I think I was subsequently helped to get off a charge by a senior officer there who used to referee us regularly!

Another enduring memory is what I think was my first London University tour - to Germany and I think in Berlin, we went to a massive beer hall that had a massive slide from the upper floor - John was there, but the entire team was led down the slide by Jack who came off at the bottom with a broken leg!

Great memories, all involving John; and I do not think anyone has mentioned Peppercorn Cottage?

From the [US] National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism:

Dr. Littleton's groundbreaking research contributed to our understanding of the development of functional tolerance to alcohol, the role of L-type Ca2+ channels in the physiology of alcohol actions, alcohol-nicotine interactions at the behavioral and cellular levels, and the use of mammalian cell culture models to study alcohol effects. His innovative work with high throughput pharmacological screening in plant cell cultures led to the identification of several lead compounds that demonstrated preclinical efficacy in reducing alcohol's effects on the central nervous system. Importantly, Dr. Littleton played a key role in exploring the mechanism of action of acamprosate that led to its approval by the FDA as a treatment for alcohol use disorder. Dr. Littleton also served on numerous scientific advisory boards and was a generous mentor for undergraduate students, graduate students, postdoctoral fellows and junior faculty. He will be missed.

From the Research Society on Alcoholism, TN:

John studied Pharmacology and Medicine as an MD, PhD student at Kings College, London University in England. After departing Kings College, John received a Wellcome Foundation Fellowship to follow his passion for plant-based drug discovered to the University of Kentucky, where he spent the remainder of his career.  John collaborated with colleagues from the Kentucky College of Agriculture using innovative methods of plant mutagenesis and high throughput pharmacological screening in plant cell cultures to identify new compounds with therapeutic potential.  This work led to the identification of several lead compounds that demonstrated preclinical efficacy in reducing the effects of alcohol on the central nervous system. John is survived by his partner Dr. Susan Barron; daughter Elise and their cat Sparkle. He will be remembered for his brilliance, innovativeness and his loves of soccer and a cold pint.