A fine week of sport wraps up an incredibly busy but successful term for Leys Sport. In rugby, Moulton played some exhilarating stuff to beat Comberton comfortably in the week. On Saturday, the Leys sides took on the Perse in a highly competitive block. The U14C and U16B had excellent wins, the 1st XV had a titanic battle and came out deserved winners,11 points to 10,and finally the U16A may not have played to their potential, but ground out a thrilling 13-10 win to wrap up an unbeaten season, which is a remarkable achievement – congratulations to all involved.
The Hockey sides also took on the Perse and again, there were some excellent performances and fine results. The U14C and U14B had excellent wins, the 4th XI and U15B sides had two tight draws, but the two performances of the day went to the U15Aswho won 3-2 to wrap up a fine season and the 1st XI who won at a canter,9 goals to 0. We wish them all the very best in their EHA National Cup Game against Felsted on Tuesday afternoon.
I am also delighted to announce the following trophies and awards, which Mr Clark will present:
- Year 7-9 Girls’ Indoor House Hockey DALE
- Year 10 & 11 Girls’ Indoor House Hockey BISSEKER
- Year 12 & 13 Girls’ Indoor House Hockey COMBINED DAY
- Year 7-9 Boys’ Badminton BISSEKER & SCHOOL
- Year 10-11 Boys’ Badminton SCHOOL
And finally on sport, the Player and Team of Month Awards for November:
- Player of Month (Girls) – Jenny G (2nd XI Hockey)
- Player of Month (Boys) – Charlie B (U16A XV Rugby)
- Team of Month (Girls) – U15B XI Hockey
- Team of Month (Boys) – U14B XV Rugby
Next, I have Certificates for those who took part in the Rotary Youth Speaking Competition.
This was a fantastic evening and whilst this year we were not victorious, The Leys team delivered a brilliant performance and are worthy of great praise. Sophie P acted as our Chairperson and delivered a great introduction. Daisy de L was our main speaker and filled her six minutes with facts, opinions, anecdotes and charm. Rania B concluded the proceedings with the vote of thanks; she was commended by the judges for being so engaging and for the pacing of her speech.
We were the first team on stage and the judges remarked on the girls’ professionalism and intelligent observations. The teams from Hills Road, The Perse and Impington were also excellent and The Perse were, in the end, victorious. I think it was an impossible decision for the judges as there really was very little between all teams. It is worth noting that in the final decision, the announcer misread the winner and accidentally declared us as victorious. As this was not the actual outcome, I was so impressed by our team for the grace and humour they exhibited in what could have been an embarrassing moment. I have certificates for our team so if those three could come forward, please: Sophie P, Daisy de L and Rania B.
And finally, the House Challenge Final: Barker beat West in a very close and well fought House Challenge Quiz final. The final score was 42 points to 41. Congratulations to all members of both teams, but please could I ask the captain of the Marker team, Lewis W, to come forward and receive the trophy.
I thought I would speak to you today about Jean Barker, wife of Alan Barker who was Headmaster of The Leys from 1958 – 1975. She died last week at the age of 96, and will be much missed by many generations of Leysians. She absolutely adored her in her time here at The Leys – indeed, these were years which she later described as the happiest of her entire life.
It is as the Head’s charismatic, witty, irreverent wife that she is remembered and loved by Leysians of a certain vintage, but in her own right she later became one of the most recognisable and best known members of the House of Lords, partly because of one specific and very funny incident, partly thanks to her readiness to speak out with her characteristic sharp wit on a huge range of subjects of public interest but mainly because of her long service as a Conservative minister and shadow minister. Renowned for her quick thinking and sense of humour, her jocularity disguised a sensitive and thoughtful politician. She also – as I was able to discover for myself – had a remarkable facility for friendships in which age, social status and politics were wholly irrelevant.
As well as being one of the longest continuous serving members of Tory governments in office until 1997, she had a number of other claims to fame. She became the oldest female minister ever at the age of 69 and remained in office until the age of 74, when John Major’s administration fell in 1992. She was a hugely popular member of the government Whips’ Office in the Lords, serving for a total of seven years and she was the longest-serving female whip in either house. Shortly after her 90th birthday, in 2012, she became the oldest panellist ever to appear on the BBC’s Have I Got News for You.
Prior to that, she was from 1985 to 1987 a junior minister at the Department of Health and Social Security. Never afraid of controversy, one of the policies she pursued was to legalise brothels, believing that regulating such behaviour was better for public health and crime than allowing this activity to remain unregulated. In the end, her plans were scrapped that other indomitable female figure of post-war British politics, the then Prime Minister, Margaret Thatcher. She moved to what was then called the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food in 1987, and was promoted to minister of state two years later.
Make no mistake: Jean cut a formidable figure: 6 foot tall, her stentorian voice was well known to Leysians. If she was calling out for her husband, she would always call him simply “Barker”. Her voice was gravelly from nearly 70 years of cigarette smoking; she had started smoking at the age of 10 and gave up at 79. She was made a Life Peer in 1980, and took her title from the ward she represented as a councillor for 10 years from 1963 on Cambridge City Council. She also served on the Cambridgeshire County Council and as Mayor of Cambridge, in which role she was proud of saving the city’s market square from being turned into a car park – thank goodness she managed that.
She had been born Jean Campbell-Harris, in 1922, the eldest of three children. Her mother, Doris Robson, was an American heiress and her father, Major Arthur Campbell-Harris, was in the imperial army, and had served as an aide to Lord Reading, the Viceroy of India, but he resigned his commission to work for his wife’s family paint business.
The Wall Street Crash of 1929 wiped out the fortune, but the family was made of resilient stuff.
“One never quite knew whether one was in the money or out of the money,” she later recalled, but the family lifestyle did not greatly change. “My mother’s idea of being poor was going to the Ritz on a bus,” she explained. She was sent to boarding school, and before the beginning of every term, her father would take her to dinner at the Savoy or the Dorchester.
She left school at 15, having never taken an examination. When the second world war broke out, she became a land girl – officially, a member of the Women’s Land Army, a civilian organisation created during the First and Second World Wars so women could work in agriculture, replacing men called up to the military. In her case, typically, it wasn’t any old farm; she worked for a year on the farm of David Lloyd George, who had been Prime Minister during the First World War, and who happened to be a close family friend. Whilst she didn’t enjoy her year as a Land Girl, it set the pattern of devotion to public service – a pattern which was maintained for the rest of her life.
After a year as a Land Girl, things looked up for Jean when another family friend took her to a cafe in Whitehall, established that she spoke French and German, and signed her up as a cipher clerk at Bletchley Park. Many of you will know what Bletchley is, but for those that don’t, it was the central site for British (and subsequently the Allied) codebreakers during World War Two. Bletchley played a vital role in the outcome of that global conflict, and Jean was a part of that. She spent the rest of the war typing German naval signals as the team cracked the German U-boat codes.
When the war was over, she campaigned on behalf of the Conservative Party and then worked for four years in France, helping to restructure the internal transport system. From 1952 she then worked in an advertising agency in the US. It was there that she met Alan Barker, a distinguished scholar and former schoolmaster at Eton, who was on a fellowship at Yale. They were married in 1954.
Her husband became Headmaster here at The Leys in 1958 and they remained here until Alan moved to University College School, London, in 1975. There are many stories about Jean’s time at The Leys, some involving her calling after her husband, or after her dog, ‘Bumble’ – I always imagine she used much the same tone in shouting after each of them – and then there are the stories about her sunbathing, scantily dressed, in full sight of the pupils (all boys then, of course) on the Headmaster’s Lawn. But perhaps the most famous story about Jean is the one about her last day at the Leys, on Speech Day 1975, when she was presenting the Swimming Cup in the pool, in front of lots of parents, pupils, Governors and other dignitaries. Instead of presenting the cup, she chose to jump, fully dressed, into the swimming pool, providing an example that was then exuberantly followed by a number of boys. “Barker” reportedly refused to speak to her for several days. Later, in responding in a most unparliamentary manner to a jibe made at her expense by her friend, Lord Tom King, she became an internet sensation, her rude gesture picked up by the cameras and preserved for posterity.
I myself was fortunate enough to meet her on several occasions, and I remember a few years ago, when she came to a dinner being held here, in a marquee just before Speech Day. She arrived in a chauffeured car from London. She was already well into her nineties, so my wife, Alison, and I took an arm each, and accompanied her to the Marquee, chattering happily between the three of us all the way. Entering the Marquee, she was immediately surrounded by former pupils keen to chat to her and remember their own fond encounters with her from their own (now distant) schooldays. I said to her: “Now, Jean, what can I get you to drink? We’ve got some bubbly, or white wine, or red wine, or perhaps a soft drink?” “Whisky”, she responded, with a typical twinkle in her eye. I don’t drink it at all myself, but rushed back to the Head’s House where she had herself lived so happily for many years, and found a bottle, not quite full but with plenty left in it, lurking dustily in a kitchen cupboard. Rushing back, I placed it next to her on the table where she was by this time sat. The evening went very well, and eventually it was time for her to leave. At that point, Alison and I again took an arm each, and guided her back to the car which was taking her back to London. She’d had a brilliant evening, she told us, and this arrangement of having one person on each arm was excellent, she said, because it meant she had been able really to let her hair down during the evening, not needing to worry about whether she could get out of the marquee and across the lawn unaided! The empty bottle certainly confirmed how much she had enjoyed the evening! All this was said with that characteristic twinkle in her eye. She was, in my experience, just lovely to be around.
I always found her hugely supportive of Alison and me, and so very fond of, and interested in, The Leys. To me she was a superb example of someone who lived a full life, one I suspect was very low on regrets, and one filled with challenge and exciting new chapters. I don’t think she took herself, or the institutions in which she worked, too seriously and she certainly didn’t stand on ceremony. I suspect she could be quite fearsome if she wanted to be, though I never saw that side of her, but I imagine that even then, there was always time for a joke, often I suspect at her own expense.
I think of her as a person with boundless curiosity and a deep interest in the world and in other people. She was someone who engaged fully with the world and with those with whom she came into contact, both here at The Leys, and in her incredibly varied, challenging and successful lifelong career of public service. I suspect this curiosity and engagement was key to her longevity, not just of life, but of a life of service to her country. We often underestimate the contribution of older generations. Her death allows us the opportunity to reflect on that error. She lived a very full and valuable life and she loved it right to the end. She published a ghost-written autobiography, Coming Up Trumps, in 2014 at the age of 92 and only retired from the House of Lords last year, when she was 95. Just two weeks before she died, in a ceremony at her Chelsea nursing home, she was invested with the Légion d’Honneur by the French ambassador, Jean-Pierre Jouyet, in recognition of her wartime service.
As a public servant of extraordinary longevity, she is almost untouchable. In that way, and in many others, she was an inspiration not just to Leysians but to public-spirited people everywhere. I felt honoured to know her and, like many generations of Old Leysians, I will miss her greatly. We can all learn from her example. Rest in peace, Jean. You’ve earned it.
(This talk is based in part on the obituary written by Julia Langdon in the Guardian newspaper, published on 27 November.)
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