Looks like if you decide not to show an article title, author, category, publish date, parent category, hits, e-mail or print icon, then no article will be presented on the page, just a blank spot.
Actually that combination of options would be a common case if you just wanted to show an article image and text on the blog page.
The problem seems to be this if statement in the file /templates/gk_john_s/html/com_content/category/blog_item.php. On about line 35
<?php if (($params->get('show_author')) or ($params->get('show_category')) or ($params->get('show_create_date')) or ($params->get('show_modify_date')) or ($params->get('show_publish_date')) or ($params->get('show_parent_category')) or ($params->get('show_hits')) or $params->get('show_print_icon') or $params->get('show_email_icon') or $canEdit or $params->get('show_title')) : ?>
So for now I have just removed it and the corresponding line 146
<?php endif; ?>
Now I get my articles. Not sure why the test is there, don't remeber similar in other templates but just wanted to document my change and let others know.