Jonathan Cainer, 1957-2016

Posted by Planet Waves

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Jonathan Cainer’s technical partner and long-term friend Stephen Lord has written this beautiful eulogy to his “wildly generous, crazy, loving, maddening, big-hearted friend.” Indeed.

by Stephen Lord

On the recent Planet Waves FM, I mentioned that Jonathan had a technical partner whose name I did not know. That would be Stephen Lord, who just wrote to introduce himself to me, and sent this letter. — efc

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Stephen Lord, second from left, with Jonathan, Muneori and the rest of their Japanese entourage, in Tokyo in 2014. Jonathan was “big in Japan,” to use a phrase coined by Alphaville.

I remember the first time I met Jonathan.

It was in the early 80s and I was working for a small IT firm, Senlac Systems in west London, when the MD of the company introduced us.

“This is Jonathan Cainer,” he said. “He’s got an idea for an astrology program and I thought you two might be a good match.”

We chatted briefly, realized that my interest in astronomy would prove useful and agreed to try working together. Thus started a relationship which lasted for more than 30 years.

We wrote that first astrology program working in and sometimes sharing a small bedsit in Swiss Cottage. Whilst I was crouched over my keyboard, trying to cram the future of the solar system into an astonishingly tiny (by today’s standards) amount of computer memory, Jonathan was crouched over his, writing the interpretations for the program — and also working on a small book called Love Signs.

We’d take a break to watch ‘Hill Street Blues’ and ‘Soap’ on a small TV and test recipes from The Junk Food Vegetarian, yet another book Jonathan was working on at the time.

Nothing much became of The Junk Food Vegetarian, or the astrology program, until later. But the publication of Love Signs would trigger both the start of Jonathan’s career as an astrologer and of our ongoing collaboration.

One evening, I got an excited phone call from Jonathan. He had received a call from the editor of ‘Woman’ magazine. She had read Love Signs, and wanted to promote a computer horoscope chart via the magazine.

The deadline was just one month from the time we received the request.

So, we went for it. Jonathan started writing the interpretations and I started programming — on a BBC Master sporting a massive, state of the art, 5MB hard drive.

We made the January deadline by staying up night after night, me sleeping on the couch when exhausted and programming all the hours I was awake.

We parted ways for a while after that. I ran off to join a rock ‘n’ roll band and busk around Europe with my girlfriend of the time, in a hand-painted Volkswagen camper van having the time of my life.

Meanwhile, Jonathan’s career went from strength to strength. He was commissioned by Edie Shah, the editor of the newly minted ‘Today’ newspaper to produce an entire page of Astrology and New Age related content. The ‘premium phone lines’ were set up and Jonathan’s profile just grew and grew.

After returning from my adventures, I went to say “hi again” to Jonathan and we struck up our friendship once more.

Then, in 1994, I had my first glimpse of a new phenomenon known as the ‘World Wide Web’ whilst chatting to Daniel, Jonathan’s brother, in his small attic music studio in North London.

I was knocked out by what I saw. Surely this was the future I was looking at; a vast, global network of information available to anyone simply by pointing and clicking with a computer mouse.

I bought myself a brand new laptop, set off for York and, in front of an open fire in Jon’s home office at the ‘Manor House’ in Oulston, proposed that we immediately set up one of these new-fangled websites, featuring his daily forecasts.

At the time, I think, only one other astrologer was publishing on the web: Rob Brezsny, with his weekly forecasts.

So, for the next few years, while I was running an internet software company as a day job, we published Jonathan’s forecasts diligently six days a week, despite there being no revenue to support it. This was before internet advertising existed, even as a gleam in an avaricious advertising exec’s eye. It was an act of faith and belief in the future, an attitude and outlook that has always defined Jonathan’s work and vision.

The rest, as they say, is history.

Jonathan’s work online was followed by increasing numbers of people as they discovered the allure of the internet and the world wide web, and found there, waiting for them, Jonathan’s inspirational writings.

Since that time we have worked together continuously; sometimes with great unity of purpose, optimism and enthusiasm; other times locking horns as his wild adventurous Sagittarian soul would clash with my cool, analytic Virgoan approach. We would argue many times, but never lost sight of the respect and affection we had for each other.

I spoke with him a few days before he passed on and had an email exchange about a new project the evening before he left us.

I miss, and will miss, him greatly. He was truly a wildly generous, crazy, loving, maddening, big-hearted friend.

Rest in Peace Jonathan.

Your friend, always,
Stephen Lord.

4 thoughts on “Jonathan Cainer, 1957-2016

  1. LizzyLizzy

    I am so touched by this beautiful letter, Eric. Thank you for sharing it with us here. How wonderful to read about Jonathan’s beginnings, and learn how far ahead of his times he was, and not at all surprising. I haven’t listened to your programme on Jonathan yet, but am very much looking forward to it. And if you read the comments here, Stephen, my heart goes out to you, and all Jonathan’s family and friends – it’s such a great great loss. I experienced his generosity at first hand, too. He always replied to me (through his secretary, Deidre) if I wrote to him, often giving me wonderful advice when I was going through difficult times.

  2. Rob MooreRob Moore

    It has been a privilege to read this, Stephen. So glad you were moved to share about your connection and friendship with Jonathan. Love these types of one-on-one insights.
    And thanks for posting, Eric =]
    Rob

  3. Eric Francis

    These folks are some bold adventurers. It was great to be invited onto their trip. By the way, Planet Waves was on the Internet in 1995 on an online mag called Scene Unseen, and the next year on my own site in the form of a site called The Worlds of Eric Francis.

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