John Michael Jones was born in Brentford, Middlesex; his father was a shipping clerk who formerly ran a building business.

He had made notable guest appearances in Dad's Army in 1975 in the episode "Ring Dem Bells" (in addition to this, he played Private Walker in the 1975–76 stage adaptation of Dad's Army, as original television actor James Beck had died in 1973) and Are You Being Served?

He also starred in the British police drama The Sweeney, in which he played villain Doc Boyd in the episode "Faces", first broadcast on Monday 8 September 1975.

In 1982 he appeared on Channel Four as legendary comedian Max Miller in Here's a Funny Thing in a reprise of the role from the stage version of the production which had been seen at Liverpool Playhouse, the Edinburgh Fringe and the Fortune Theatre in L in the much-acclaimed BBC drama, Johnny Jarvis (Nigel Williams).Also appeared as a The Children Film Foundation (CFF) Friend or Foe as In 1984, he had a guest role as "Constable Palk" in The Body in the Library, and appeared as a night porter in the film version of Ordeal by Innocence the following year.

In 1986 he played the Head of Security for a supermarket in an episode of Only Fools and Horses from series five called "The Longest Night", in the same year he appeared as a Railway ticket collector in the film Clockwise.

He appeared as the father of Daryl Stubbs in Birds of a Feather (in 1991 and again in 1998), and played an asylum warden in the 1996 TV adaptation of Gulliver's Travels.

[5] Bardon also made an appearance in the sitcom Desmond's, in a two part episode of the second series in which he played a police officer.

[8] In November 2007, it was reported that he was making steady progress, when he opened a new stroke ward at the Queen Elizabeth II Hospital in Welwyn Garden City.

[12] Bardon's last appearance was aired on 26 May 2011, when his character Jim left Albert Square to move into a care home.