[3] After war service as a machine gunner in the Middlesex Regiment, and as a warrant officer reporting courts martial for the Judge Advocate General's department in Naples,[3] he returned to the Press Association in 1946,[1] where he remained until his recruitment by the BBC in 1956 as assistant industrial correspondent.
He was particularly disappointed by the cancellation of the Black Arrow British space programme in July 1971, at the very moment it was providing results.
Turnill wrote many obituaries of people involved in aerospace and other figures for The Guardian, The Times and The Daily Telegraph, the last to appear during his lifetime being of Sir James Hamilton, who helped design Concorde's wing.
Turnill) acquantance began with learning me on winter nights to write and sum.....he was of a studious musing turn of mind and fond of books always carrying one of some sort or other in his pocket to read between toils at leisure hours.Clare goes on to say: ...he would be making his telescopes of paste board and study the stars with the assistance of a book.So the young John Turnill liked books, the stars and was of a generous nature.
Clare dedicated a sonnet to him: Turnill, we toiled together all the day, And lived like hermits from the boys at play; We read and walked together round the fields, Not for the beauty that the journey yields – But muddied fish, and bragged o'er what we caught, And talked about the few old books we bought.
Though low in price you knew their value well, And I thought nothing could their worth excel; And then we talked of what we wished to buy, And knowledge always kept our pockets dry.