Highgate Cemetery - East - Dennis Barker 02

Dennis Barker (21 June 1929 – 2 March 2015) was a

British British may refer to: Peoples, culture, and language * British people, nationals or natives of the United Kingdom, British Overseas Territories, and Crown Dependencies. ** Britishness, the British identity and common culture * British English, ...

journalist A journalist is an individual that collects/gathers information in form of text, audio, or pictures, processes them into a news-worthy form, and disseminates it to the public. The act or process mainly done by the journalist is called journalis ...

Early life and career

Born at Lowestoft, Suffolk, son of company director George Barker and Gertrude (née Seeley), Barker and his mother escaped the heavy bombing of Lowestoft during the

Second World War World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposi ...

in favour of a cottage at Beaconsfield, Buckinghamshire; he would attend six schools over the next six years. On leaving school he went into local and regional journalism, first as a reporter and subeditor for the Suffolk Chronicle and Mercury in Ipswich, then the East Anglian Daily Times and its counterpart the Ipswich Evening Star, where he wrote features and served as theatre critic. He subsequently moved to the Express and Star in Wolverhampton, again as reporter and theatre critic, only remaining in the latter role until being banned from local theatres because of critical reviews he had written.

Guardian career

From 1963, Barker spent much of his career at ''

The Guardian ''The Guardian'' is a British daily newspaper. It was founded in 1821 as ''The Manchester Guardian'', and changed its name in 1959. Along with its sister papers ''The Observer'' and ''The Guardian Weekly'', ''The Guardian'' is part of the Gu ...

'', as a reporter and feature writer. He left the staff in 1991. After his retirement, he concentrated on writing obituaries for the newspaper. As many of his obituary pieces were prepared in advance of the subjects’ deaths, articles by Barker continue to be published in ''The Guardian'', years after his death

Personal life

In 1986, aged 57, Barker married Guardian colleague Sarah Alwyn. Their daughter Ellie was born in 1992.

References

1929 births 2015 deaths Burials at Highgate Cemetery British male journalists People from Lowestoft The Guardian journalists {{UK-journalist-stub