An obituary shared by his brother Paul Huxley (E 60-65) with friends in the Bradfield Waifs and the Bradfield community.
I’m very sad to report that my brother Barry Huxley died totally unexpectedly, aged 72, from a heart attack on Friday 6 May, having walked with his two dogs to a friend’s house in Thorpe village for dinner.
James Wyatt (G 58-63), who played a lot of cricket with Barry, has very kindly allowed me to include his lovely tribute: “This is indeed tragic news and so very sad that his life and enjoyment of it was ruined by ME. An exceptionally talented all-round sportsman in his youth, I remember him scoring a very elegant 115* vs. St Edward’s in The Cricketer Cup. He was also an Arthur Dunn Cup player and I remember him telling me how nervous he was driving at the 1st tee in the Hewitt”.
While at Bradfield, I remember watching him in a Junior Colts football match with my parents, when the Headmaster joined us and remarked: “Barry needs building up…give him plenty of steak and wine!” It must have worked because Barry went on to excel in both football and cricket. Having been Captain of Cricket at Bradfield, he was chosen to Captain the ESCA South Schools against the North. He played 22 times for the Waifs in the Cricketer Cup and, in addition to his hundred against St Edward’s Martyrs, I watched him share a 150 run partnership with Mark Nicholas (G 71-76) which set up a win over Richard Hutton’s Repton Pilgrims. He also played a bit for Berkshire.
Barry’s many pals remember him as a very kind, gentle person but he had a mischievous sense of humour. Probably little known was his secret arrangement, while Captain of Cricket at Bradfield, with the landlord of a local pub. In return for Barry giving the landlord’s son coaching in the nets, he was served free pints in the garage next to the pub!
The awful ME disease, a Chronic Fatigue Syndrome, seemed to first hit Barry when he had to stop a squash game with me when he was in his late twenties. This was often totally debilitating, but he continued to play sport when he could and seemed to excel at everything he tried. While in his sixties, he scored two hundreds playing for Lyne village cricket team and, in addition to golf with his many friends at Sunningdale and New Zealand, over the years he took up croquet, tennis, gliding, riding, ball-room dancing and clay pigeon shooting and achieved a high standard in them all.
Barry was a Director of the Huxley family business, which used to manufacture and sell commercial grass cutting machinery and latterly focused on the supply of all-weather golf surfaces. We were proud to supply Bradfield with most of the machinery required for the new golf course and our link with the school continues with the supply of specialist golf nets and practice surfaces. The Huxley Golf business carries on after we transferred ownership to an Employee Owned Trust which we set up two years ago.
My two sons, David (E 87-92) and Johnny (E 89-94), followed Barry and me to Bradfield and I know Barry was delighted that my grandsons Harry and Max are due to continue the tradition. Barry remained single all his life, but he obviously had a very special place in the hearts of family and friends in many countries, as I’m having a job to keep up with the lovely phone and email tributes that continue to pour in.
RIP Barry.
