Tony Barnett, a science teacher and one of the hardy survivors of the 1960s counterculture, has died aged 81. He passed away shortly after falling ill with pneumonia while travelling in Sri Lanka.
Early life and travels
Born in Kettering, Northamptonshire, to Daniel, a commercial artist, and Nancy (nee Gates), a housewife, Tony grew up in Hampstead, north London. He attended William Ellis grammar school and joined the Aldermaston marches as a teenager, becoming a regular at Hampstead Young Socialists meetings and the local Witch's Cauldron coffee bar, a gathering place for aspiring bohemians.
In 1962 and again in 1963, he journeyed overland to Morocco in search of adventure. Further long trips took him through Istanbul, Beirut, Lebanon and, in 1965, overland to Afghanistan, where a cholera outbreak trapped him until he was repatriated via the British embassy. He later rode his motorcycle to Morocco, drove across the US, and made diving trips to the Red Sea, Indonesia and the Maldives.
Teaching career
A science teacher by trade, Tony taught in various London schools across a 30-year career, travelling in the long holidays and in extended periods between jobs. Trained at St Mark and St John's College, Chelsea, he later took an Open University degree in physics and taught at Hampstead comprehensive, where his friend and fellow teacher worked alongside him. After retirement, he worked as a science technician at King's College London, helping to train young teachers.
Personal struggles and contradictions
His life was marked by stark contradictions and formidable willpower. He experimented with opiates in the 1960s and battled heroin addiction for more than a decade, yet never allowed it to interfere with his teaching. In the mid-1970s he quit abruptly, and decades later, when warned by doctors about his drinking, he gave up alcohol just as dramatically, never touching a drop for the last 20 years of his life. He joined the Emin, a mystical cult, in the 1970s, but abandoned it when he grew cynical about its organisers.
Family and legacy
Tony married Maggie Gearson in 1969, and they had a son, Julius, before Maggie's death from an accidental methadone overdose in 1971. He also fathered a daughter, Jessica, as a sperm donor to two friends who wanted a child, and he kept in contact with her throughout his life. He is survived by Julius and Jessica.
To his friends, Tony seemed indestructible – a force of nature whose optimism, humour and loyalty enriched countless lives. Even in later life, he continued to travel for months at a time through India, Sri Lanka, Vietnam and Laos with a kit bag weighing less than 10kg.
