John Ross was the son of Donald William Ross, who was originally from Alloa, in Clackmannonshire, Scotland, and his wife, Dorothy Jane Laidlaw, who despite her Scottish name, was from Durham. Donald Ross worked as a cashier for a clothing manufacturer.

When John Ross was born in Bramley, Leeds, on 22^nd April 1900, he became the second child in the family, following a sister, Dorothy, who was almost three years older than John. The family was living at 9 Landseer Avenue.

Eventually, the Ross family grew to include six children, although like many families at the time, Donald and Dorothy Ross suffered the loss of one of their children.

The Ross family later moved to ‘Weardale’ in Beeston, and it was from this address that John Ross left to join the Royal Air Force in May 1918. He had been working as an engineer’s draughtsman, and this technical background would have made him a suitable candidate for pilot training.

While at the Armaments School, John Ross was re-graded from Private Class 2 to Flight Cadet, meaning that upon his successful completion of all his training, and his qualification as a pilot, he would be commissioned as a Second Lieutenant. Once these phases of his training were complete, Flight Cadets were posted to Training Depot Stations to undergo their flight training. This was split into two distinct phases of training, with the first phase lasting three months. During the first phase of flight training, the trainee pilots would have to complete 25 hours of elementary flight training, progressing from flying with an instructor to solo flight. The remainder of the time, not spent flying, was taken up with a thorough ground training programme. Those who passed were graded ‘A’ and were thus qualified to progress to the next phase.

Phase two of the flight training was usually, but not always, undertaken at the same Training Depot Station, and would last for two months, during which time, the student pilots would be required to complete a further 35 hours of flight training, including time spent flying the most up to date types of aircraft which they would find at operational flying squadrons. The student pilots would be tested on their abilities in cross-country flying, reconnaissance work, artillery cooperation and formation flying. A successful pass in this phase of the training meant that the student was graded ‘B’ and commissioned, prior to being sent out to his fighting squadron.

When John Ross was released from the RAF, he had not yet qualified as a pilot, and had not been commissioned. He returned to the family home in Beeston, however, his parents’ names appeared on the Electoral Roll for Scholes in 1920, indicating that they had moved the family to the village during the preceding year. John Ross was still too young to vote, so his name does not appear. It was the only year that the Ross’s appeared on the Electoral Roll for Scholes, and an electoral Roll for Holbeck later that same year shows the Ross’s, including John, living at Town Street, Holbeck. This address was in fact, ‘Weardale’, the Beeston address that the family had lived in prior to them coming to Scholes.

John Ross moved to Sidcup in Kent, in 1928 to take up employment as a design engineer. He returned the following year to marry Millicent Helm the daughter of Mark Helm, of Gascoigne Farm on Elmwood Lane in Barwick. They married at All Saints’ Church on 31^st July 1929.

A son, Donald, was born in Kent in 1932, their second child, a daughter named Dora was born in Suffolk in 1937. By this time John Ross was a design engineer working for Eastern Coach Works, in Lowestoft, which built buses. Because of the threat of seaborne invasion in the early days of the Second World War, it was deemed unsafe to produce vehicles designed to carry lots of people so close to a potential invasion port in case the vehicles were captured and used by an invading enemy. Military authorities ordered that production at Lowestoft must cease. Production was moved inland to Irthlingborough in Northamptonshire for the duration the war. Because of his position in the company, John Ross remained employed by the company when it moved, but 950 production line workers, who could not move, or were not considered to be critical to the operation of the company, did not move, and were laid off. Before the company moved production to Irthlingborough, John Ross had volunteered as a Special Constable, but it is unlikely that he would have continued this during his time living away from home.

After the war was over, Eastern Coach Works moved production back to Lowestoft, and John Ross returned to live at the family home in Skamacre Crescent in the town.

Millicent Ross died in Lowestoft in 1956. In 1958, her widower, John Ross married Marjorie Joan Howell. John Ross died on 29^th May 1979. He was cremated at Great Yarmouth Crematorium in Gorleston a week later, on 4^th June.