The death of Professor John Wing, one of the giants of 20th-century British and world psychiatry, rightly deserves to be marked by a tribute in the British Journal of Psychiatry. This article has been prepared by four people who knew John personally and through his work, his partner in private and work life, a colleague in Great Britain and one abroad and a pupil, which are set out as four separate contributions. John was born on 22 October 1923. He died on 18 April 2010, aged 87.