John Cunningham was born in Aberdeen in 1942 with vague memories of bombing of that city.  He attended Aberdeen Grammar School which many years later was severely damaged by fire.  His parents moved to Glasgow where he attended Hillhead High School before entering the Agriculture Department of Glasgow University, later specializing in Agricultural Zoology.  With an honours degree in this discipline, he was accepted as a D.Phil. student at Oxford University studying viruses for control of insect pests and graduated from St. Cross College in 1967. He was offered employment at the Insect Pathology Laboratory in Sault Ste. Marie where he worked for 29 years before taking an early retirement and making a career change to real estate.

For those interested in genealogy, his grandfather, John Cunningham, from Port Seaton, East Lothian, served with the Royal Scots and was killed in WW1. His name is in the war memorial book in Edinburgh Castle.  His father served with the Intelligence Corps in WW2 at Bletchley, now a museum that he has yet to visit.  His mother's maiden name was Castel and many of the ancestors on that side of the family are buried in Fyvie churchyard in Aberdeenshire.