Teacher, Scout and traveller; Born October 14,1940; Died September 30, 2007. JOHN T K Barr, who has died aged 66, was a life-long educator and traveller for whom teaching was not confined to the classroom.
Learning and teaching about the world were outdoor activities for him, and he did this by leading more than 40 expeditions abroad over a 40-year period, for both Port Glasgow High School and the 7th Paisley (JNI) Scout Group. His talks on these expeditions then brought his unique experiences to a wide audience of guilds, groups and clubs all across Scotland.
Barr, who was known as Ian, was born in Rankin Memorial Hospital, Greenock, and the family later moved to Elderslie, where they remained, except for a temporary move to Helensburgh during the war. He was a pupil of the John Neilson Institute in Paisley and joined the Wolf Cubs in 1948 and the Scouts in 1951.
After studying geography at the University of Glasgow, he started teaching at Port Glasgow High School in August 1964, and continued to teach there until his retirement in October 1999 - 35 years service in one school, firstly as a teacher, and then as principal teacher of geography. He was not interested in being promoted further as he wanted to deal with pupils, not paperwork, and found the bin an excellent way to handle the latest educational reforms.
In everything he did in his life, Barr was an educator and this involved an appreciation of the environment and nature, fellow human beings and how to get on with them. This philosophy showed itself through the many overseas school expeditions he organised and many of which would nowadays probably be considered too dangerous to be allowed.
There were two types of trips: regular ski trips throughout the winter, and often abroad at Easter, as well as what came to be known as Geog-Ex trips (the Geographical and Exploration Society) which were held roughly every two years.
These trips involved more than just going abroad. Months of planning, training and teambuilding, for both pupils and staff, took place before they left the country. Over the years, Barr led expeditions to destinations as varied as Arctic Norway, the Middle East at the time of the Six Days War, Crete, Czechoslovakia during the Prague Spring of 1968, Iceland, Greece, the Accursed Mountains in the Pyrenees, Slovenia, Sardinia, the Hardanger Ice Cap, the Sierra de Grados, and many more. They usually involved groups of around a dozen boys from third year upwards.
By 1959, Barr was also an assistant Scout leader at the 7th Paisley (JNI) Scout Group, and from 1961 the Scout leader. He organised and led similarly adventurous expeditions for the Scouts, including trips to Corsica, Andorra, Yugoslavia, Poland, Hannibal's route over the Alps, the Dolomites and many more.
Despite the adventurous and groundbreaking nature of these school and Scout expeditions, Ian had built up strong relationships with the parents, who trusted him to look after their boys, many of whom had never even been out of the country before.
Ian spent hours writing up accounts of his travels, which were always serialised in the local papers. These features were a fantastic advert for studying geography or joining the Scouts. The slides from the trips were then used when he gave illustrated talks about his expeditions to almost every guild, private club and photographic society in the Central Belt. These were so popular that he was invited back again and again. Earlier this year, the Greenock Philosophical Society made a presentation to mark his 30th talk to the group. His loyalty over many years to the people and organisations he was involved with was always obvious. As a result, he has left a massive archive of professional quality photographs that encompass all of the many aspects of his life.
Towards the end of his school career, Ian formed the Ibex climbing club for people who wanted to continue climbing and travelling with him. The balance of responsibility evened out over the years as former pupils became friends and began to keep a watchful eye on him rather than the other way around.
When he retired, Barr travelled to Mali, Mongolia, Ethiopia, Mauritania, the Sudan, the high Atlas mountains, Namibia and Ecuador, and he continued to photograph, document and give talks on all of his trips.
He married Barbara Pollock, another Port Glasgow High School teacher, in July 1974, having talked her out of emigrating to New Zealand. Their son, Gordon, was born in January 1978.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article