Holding On Together

So there it is, a slice of conversation with Barry. Returning to the interview confirms my absolute sense of loss: for 'holding on' to roots is a process that requires constant re-affirmation from valued friends. Defending any sense of equalitarian projects in the past eighteen years in England has been a perilous and problematic process. Let us hope that the Labour victory of May 1st truly heralds a new dawn. I know for sure that is what Barry would be hoping.

As you read this transcript it is impossible not to appreciate the power and inquisitiveness of his mind - his questions are un-negotiated, direct and full-frontal. There is none of the fudging and hedging, the searching for the acceptable question that is so much part of English professorial life. I once asked him what he hated most about being an academic life. His answer was immediate, 'the ducking and diving, twisting and turning to avoid confronting issues directly'. He had no time for this. He wanted to 'tell it straight'. But to tell it straight in English academic life is to pay a huge price, especially if you look like a Spurs supporter out on the town, or, as someone so famously once put it, 'a sulky boy in denims'. The professorial community tends to close ranks against the alien outsider in a way that reminds me of Erving Goffman's study of Stigma. The focus is moved to the unacceptable 'style' of the person - which is judged to be 'non-professorial'. Thus the content of their intellectual work is neatly side-stepped and the challenge of that work and line of inquiry, effectively stymied. This is the true and appalling legacy of the intersection between English class society and professorial life. Nobody reading this transcript could doubt Barry's brilliance but so often the audience concentrated on his style, his otherness.

He judged this a price worth paying - to make the essential and obvious point. It is not how you dress or talk that has anything to do with your intellect or worth. The badge of the class society has nothing to do with the badges of self-worth. In an iconic way Barry's life and work proves this essential point.