Paul Barron (FN 51–54). We thank Ian Homersham (FN 51-55) and Suzy Barron for the following notice:
“Paul died on the 15th April 2018 after a long battle with Alzheimer’s. The final years of his life were spent in Haddenham with his wife Suzy after a life-time travelling the world, primarily with the Coca Cola Company, in which he was appointed a Corporate Vice President in 1981, the first Briton to be so. Paul grew up in St Aidans Road, Carlisle, a quiet cul-de-sac overlooking playing fields and Rickerby Park in which there was a popular prep school which provided a ‘feeder’ for St Bees, a path followed by Paul and several others, myself included. It was a safe environment for children and included a tennis club where Paul, encouraged by his two elder sisters Dulcie and Maureen, was to develop an ability leading to his successful participation in the Junior Cumberland Lawn Tennis Championships. At St Bees he played in the 1st Tennis VI. Paul was left-handed, an advantage on the football pitch at Rickerby, where he dazzled on the left wing. He was a strong and aggressive runner reluctant to release the ball, which put him in good stead when he went on to play rugby at St Bees and won his 1st XV colours. GCE ‘O’ levels proved a less stimulating challenge to Paul, who considered a future in journalism but, not surprisingly, Jane Austen lost out to Hank Jansen and Paul exchanged school for the advertising world of Proctor and Gamble and the bright lights of Carlisle and  Newcastle. Shortly afterwards, he liaised with Mick Potts in Carlisle to bring the latter’s Gateway Jazz Band, a New Orleans group, to play in the newly finished Memorial Hall. I was the jazz club’s secretary. The Headmaster and Paul Williams kindly allowed us an inaugural evening and we played to a full house at a shilling a head which paid for the band’s train fare. It was a wild success, the band encoring ‘When the Saints go marching in’ several times to a cheering, stomping audience.
Paul’s musical taste owed much to the American bands and singers, in particular Spike Jones and his City Slickers thus his nickname for many years of ‘Spike’ Barron. National Service in the Middlesex Regiment followed, from which he was discharged on medical grounds - his back - before returning to play for Carlisle RUFC! The advertising and PR world provided the sort of highly competitive workplace in which Paul prospered. He worked hard and played hard, marrying Joanne in 1963, who bore him three sons, Guy, Simon and Tim. His early background in soccer came in useful in the USA, where to have an English coach with a boys’ team carried some kudos, particularly one who rubbed shoulders with Sepp Blatter and FIFA. His CV is spattered with leading companies, including McCann-Erikson and other famous names, reaching the zenith of his career with Coca Cola and sponsorship of the World Cup in 1975 promoting the world famous name to all corners of its empire. Paul and his family lived and worked in South Africa, Japan, the USA, and Atlanta, the company’s headquarters, a term of fourteen years in all. In 1986 Paul left the USA to work independently in London. Joanne returned to Georgia within a reasonable distance of the boys, who were now producing grandchildren. Paul and Suzy married and lived in London for two years before buying a house in Buckinghamshire, returning to Cumbia regularly. He was eighty-one when he died and had led a full and colourful life in which St Bees was a happy chapter.”

 

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St Bees School,    St Bees,    Cumbria,    CA27 0DS.

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