My friend Barrie Taylor, who has died aged 78, was a big man with a big personality – a community and health service champion and a Labour party councillor for the London borough of Westminster.
In 1974 he became the first and last secretary of the South West Herts community health council, holding the job for 30 years until it was abolished. He loved helping people to engage with the NHS, via everything from complaints systems to statutory consultations, and believed that community health councils were an essential democratising feature of the NHS.
He was elected as a Westminster Labour councillor in 1986, serving for most of the next 30 years until 2018 and becoming an alderman in 2000. He also worked hard to help his wife, Karen Buck, the Labour MP for Westminster North, particularly through his campaigning efforts at general elections.
Born in Smethwick in the West Midlands to Charles and Doris, who were known to him as “Dot and Spot”, he had five much older half-siblings from his parents’ previous marriages. When Barrie was seven the family moved to Welwyn Garden City, Hertfordshire, where his parents ran a grocery and a fish and chip shop. There he attended Welwyn Garden City high school.
Later qualifying with a City and Guilds certificate from Hertford Technical College in 1967, he worked for various companies as a draughtsman and industrial engineer, including for a time as a contractor on the Rolls-Royce RB211 aircraft engine. He married Brigid Allnutt, in 1966, and they had twins, Zachary and Rebecca, in 1971.
Wanting to work in a more people-oriented setting, Barrie joined the NHS in 1970 as a senior administrative assistant for North West Thames regional health authority, mainly undertaking work studies and surveys, before moving on to become secretary of the South West Herts community health council. After its abolition he worked as a freelance for various NHS bodies on performance, training and scrutiny.
Following a divorce from Brigid in the early 1980s, Barrie met Karen, and they moved to central London. It was around that time that he became a Labour party activist, and in 1986 he was elected as a councillor for the Bayswater ward (1986-90) and then Queens Park (1994-2018) in Westminster. As an alderman, he delighted in officiating at citizenship ceremonies.
When Karen stood as the Labour party candidate for the Westminster North constituency in 1997, he threw himself into supporting her, helping her to win the seat and then to retain it across a further six general elections.
Barrie was a man of many enthusiasms. His Smethwick roots made him a “Baggie” – a supporter of West Bromwich Albion FC – and he was also a big fan of British jazz and blues, Georgie Fame above all. He loved films, big multifamily holidays, cooking different types of cuisine, and driving (erratically, some would say).
He always had a project on the go and a new adventure in mind. Despite his failing health, in 2019 he started a master’s degree in creative writing at Birkbeck, University of London, which he was hoping to add to the MA in public policy that he had gained on a part-time basis from Bristol University many years before.
He is survived by Karen, whom he married in 2000, and their son, Cosmo, and by Zachary and Rebecca, and three grandchildren.
