John McKay Campbell was born in 1916 in Golspie, Northern Scotland, to Alexander Cambell, a blacksmith who manufactured the Campbell bicycle and later owned a garage called Campbell & Sons in Golspie.

John started his engineering degree at the University of Edinburgh in 1934, but his studies were interrupted by the war. He enlisted with the Royal Air Force as a flight engineer. Two of his brothers, William and David, went to Burma where they both died, and the fourth of the brothers, Kenneth, was in the Home Guard.

After the war, John was able to complete his engineering degree and graduated from the University of Edinburgh in June 1939. However, after their father Alexander died in 1946 John and his brother Kenneth were left with heavy death duties and debts, and struggled to maintain the family business, selling it to the Inverness motor dealers McRae & Dick in 1960.

Just after the sale, John moved to Welling, London to become a mathematics and science teacher in Woolwich Secondary boy's school, retiring at 65. He died aged 70 in 1986, his chest having been weakened from malaria in his Indian war service.