Jack Hearn

John Hearn was born on 19 September 1923 in North Shields and grew up in the town. He enlisted in the Royal Northumberland Fusiliers in 1942 at the age of 18. During service in Algiers an eye condition that would have affected his ability to use a rifle led him to operate a Bren light machine gun at the rear of a convoy. He later drove for the Royal Army Service Corps at the Battle of Monte Cassino in Italy.

In May 2024, at the age of 100, he was one of a small number of surviving veterans who returned to Italy for the 80th anniversary of the end of that battle, where he paid his respects at Commonwealth war graves.

Hearn had been a racing cyclist, covering long distances into Lincolnshire and northern Scotland, before appendix surgery forced him to give the sport up. In 1951 he began practising judo in North Shields. In 1954 he and his brother Bob set up a judo club, and he went on to teach for more than seventy years.

In 2016 he urged other pensioners to take up new physical activities and said he had recently begun dancing. On BBC Three's Amazing Humans in 2018, aged 94, he said he would only stop judo when the last nail was hammered into his coffin. He was awarded his 10th dan in 2020, marking ten years since his 9th dan. The same year he applied to Guinness World Records as the oldest judo instructor; the record was verified and his certificate arrived in 2023. At 100 he still worked as a technical adviser, judge and examiner, travelling as far as Essex, while leaving the more physical teaching to younger instructors.

Hearn lived in Cramlington, Northumberland. By late 2023 he had five children, fourteen grandchildren and six great-grandchildren. Northumberland County Council marked his 100th birthday with an event at County Hall in Morpeth.

In the 2026 New Year Honours he received the British Empire Medal for services to judo and to the community in the North East. At 102 he was the oldest person on that honours list. In March 2026 Cramlington Town Council awarded him the Freedom of Cramlington, the town's highest civic honour.

Hearn died on 10 October 2026 at the age of 103. ITV News reported his death on 14 October 2026. The cause of death was not made public. He was widely remembered in the North East as Judo Jack, a wartime veteran and a teacher who had remained active in the sport into his second century.

Hearn's Guinness World Record as the oldest active judo instructor, his 10th dan and his British Empire Medal fixed his place in British sporting and civic memory. Local councils, clubs and the press in Northumberland treated him as an emblem of long service to young people and to judo. His wartime service and his return to Monte Cassino at 100 also made him a public face of the dwindling generation of Second World War veterans.