Having been around for sufficient time to acquire a bus pass Barry Coward has decided to write here about people and issues that concerns him. You will find them listed in the menu on the left of this page. Feel free to correspond using the contact link but be warned Barry might paste them on this site! You might also like to make comments at his blog entitled Oldie
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1.Background
1.1 Barry has been a rebel all his life and it does not stop now he's old. His first rebellious act was at the age of five when he was lined up with other infant school kids in Trinity Road, Wandsworth Common, London a week after the Coronation, handed a flag and told to wave it at the new Queen Elizabeth as she passes by in her car. Needless to say this rebel spirit threw the flag at the new Monarch (who survived uninjured).
1.2. Barry worked in the public sector until it dawned on him that he was wasting his efforts working in a bureaucracy. In fact his second in command had dubbed him "management's monster."
1.3 Ten years after retiring from regular paid employment Barry faced the Grim Reaper with a cancer in which the prognosis for survival was 50%. He told the Grim reaper to go away it was not time. The experience did sharpen the value of time for Barry.
2.Heroes
2.1 On one's journey through life we gather heros. For many they will be sporting or entertainment personalities. However for Barry they are very different. A wordsmith, a musician, a politcian and a cleric.
2.2 Tom Paine An Excise man who following a seminal incident while posted in Alford, Lincolnshire, went on to rally the American people to declare independence from Britain.
2.2 Samuel Coleridge-Taylor a black musician and composer form Croydon, Surrey who in his short life was to become as important to black Americans as martin Luther King was to be two generations later. Like Paine he is all but forgotten in the USA.
2.3 Jawaharlal Nerhu the first Prime Minister of India.
2.4. Archbishop Desmond Tutu.
Issues
3.1 There are many and various issues that Barry has taken up during his life. A common theme is an intolerance of bureaucracy, and the freedom of the individual
3.2 In recent years Barry joined demonstrations against the war in Iraq, fights for better management of our national film archive and more support for regional archives and has campaigned for better public transport (his car spends most days parked outside his house).
Photos
4.1 Barry hasa stills camera with him wherever he has been for over 40 years. Here's were you can view some of the results:
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