Ma, as she was to me, was born in Chesterfield, the second of three girls, and christened Barbara Evelyn in the church with the twisted spire. Judy was the youngest and she is with us here today. In 1923 their father, James Rothwell, was promoted to Town Clerk of Brighton, a position which, in those times, allowed him to send his daughters to Roedean. Barbara’s sporty and adventurous nature left a high jump record there and soon after led her, on the arm of ‘Poop’ Johnson, to deepest Africa.
Life in the colonial service was primitive but exciting with the added advantage of escaping the war in Europe. Her poem ‘Ulendo’ evocatively describes the scene as the white couple walked through the bush with a long line of porters behind, carrying on their heads all the requirements for a degree of comfort ‘on tour’. This was a routine event for the district administrator as he supervised his territory. Gill was born in that time and she at this moment is in a church in Harare thinking of us.
Lucky for me, and several of you, one day in Lusaka during the forties, Barbara spotted one Neil Clothier at the next table in the Grand hotel and decided life with Poop was a bit dull. I remember our first home on a research station East of Lusaka where Neil was demonstrating that it was possible to grow wheat in Northern Rhodesia. She said I fell off a horse there before I was born. Water came up from the river in a 44 gallon drum lashed to an ox cart and the lamps and fridge ran on paraffin. Pat was born there too.
Barbara greatly enjoyed an active social life in and around Lusaka where her wit and charm made many good and lasting friends. Some tried hard to persuade her to write down her fund of tales; she had a great ability to write entertainingly and her works would have been a blend of Doris Lessing and Bill Bryson. She resisted with the entirely false excuse, that she was a bear of very little brain.
In 1956 the winds of change caused Neil to take the family to Southern Rhodesia and, for the first time, Barbara had a house with electricity and before long, television too. A morning job as secretary to a professor at the new University satisfied her intellectual leanings and at the Helensvale tennis club in the afternoons she established another group of lasting friends.
Barbara was not convinced that Ian Smith’s regime was sustainable and she said so, sometimes in letters to the Herald. This produced an ugly response from the right wing including threatening phone calls. Neither was she confident in the promises of Mr Mugabe so ‘Independence’ was her cue to return to England. Like many of their friends Barbara and Neil had to exchange a very comfortable colonial existence for a rather modest retirement back in Somerset whence, incidentally, Neil’s ancestors set forth for London 200 years earlier. What a marvellous coincidence it is that Rev. David Jasper’s mother was a Clothier. Events have proved she was right to insist that they left Zimbabwe when they did and we in England have been the beneficiaries.
Barbara was the most universally liked person I have known. She was greatly admired by the gentlemen who, much to her disappointment, have tended to pass on rather too early. She loved humour, especially of the slightly risky or mischievous kind, and was quick to see the funny side of life. Three days before she died we were talking of the fact that she lives on in all her progeny and I said that I would endeavour to live up to her virtues. With that wicked grin she said, “you’ll have no trouble with my virtues it’s my vices that you might fall short on”.
Hers was an uncomplicated wisdom with sound intuition. After Neil died in 1996 she eventually got round to looking at the investments he had carefully built up out of the meagre assets they had salvaged from Zimbabwe. She called me and said that, since she didn’t really understand the financial markets, she had sold the lot and banked the cash. Within a year the stock market had one of its biggest crashes ever.
Her candour was always delivered without offence which made her a very much more effective parent and grandparent than she gave herself credit for. I cannot recall her complaining of the difficulties in life and her sense of duty was exemplified by the way she supported Neil’s handicapped daughter, Pepita. Her only shortcoming was excessive modesty in her own ability.
Thank God, and assisted by her own courage and determination, she was able to remain active and independent to within a fortnight of her departure. She was grateful for a long and happy innings but I deeply regret the passing of a beautiful friend.