Geoffrey Berry

Geoffrey Berry was the oldest friend I can remember at Bolton School. He was in the class two years above me throughout, and our careers followed similar patterns for many years. His keenest interest was always history, as mine had been. But we also shared a pleasure with music – Geoffrey had also reached a modest proficiency with the piano – he was a regular attender of the gramophone society at school lunchtime breaks, and sang for the school choir, especially in the chamber choir, where music master PAS Stephens introduced us to JS Bach among other pleasures. Another activity enjoyed at school was the ‘school play’ every Lent term. Being just older than me, Geoffrey got some of the better parts dished out by master Frank Green! If sport was not a priority for Geoffrey, then his activities at the school Scout group were. As I got to know him better, and his family at 210 Belmont Road, and his family Frank and Elsie and younger brother Ian, I realised that Geoffrey (like his father) was very adept with his hands, turning various tasks like decorating, woodwork, bookbinding, and cooking as easy jobs, working with meticulous care. This care was well served later in life when he took up the law as his career.

Geoffrey was not spared by the two years of National Service, still being imposed on young men in 1954! He kept in touch with me through some of his tough times, while I was spared a year later because of my own weak health – flat feet, no use for square bashing! So by September 1956 we both were ready to join Trinity Hall in Cambridge for senior study, and it was natural that we would offer to share a room in college for the first year (a cold room A1). Geoffrey plunged into law as to the manner born, while I struggled especially with my latin! One of the first things Geoffrey did was to allow himself to be recruited into the Hall rowing club, as he was of such light weight; he started to train as a cox, a role he enjoyed over three years in the University, and not just at college. He achieving the position of cox for the second boat position in the whole university team without ever quite getting a ‘blue’ himself! The training and racing that he put himself through over three whole years was phenomenal, when I look back.

Academically, Geoffrey achieved a good solid 2.1 degree; his training at Trinity Hall was first class, and when he started his legal training with articles as a solicitor, he selected a firm in Manchester, with whom he stayed for nearly 25 years. His legal reputation was, I was assured on many occasions, of the highest quality, with solicitors, barristers and judges. Yet we never had to meet on opposite sides in the law!

So it was not long before Geoffrey found the confines of Bolton too restricting, and he bought himself a small house in central Manchester – to be nearer the action both in the law, and socially. He never lost touch with Bolton though. He acted frequently at Bolton Little Theatre while still living in Bolton. He joined a choir for Manchester Opera Society to join the chorus for several amateur productions in the 1960s at Umist. He also sang in the choir at Union Bolton Choral loyally for many years; he also became treasurer for the Bolton branch of the Historical Association for an equal period. He rarely missed concerts at the Bolton Chamber Concerts at the Bolton Central Library, as well as those with the Manchester Chamber Music Society at the Royal Northern School. He was an avid reader too, especially of fiction, and in Manchester he joined a book club based on the Central Library that thought little of selecting a novel of 700 pages – and he tried to finish them! As soon as Geoffrey had settled in work in Manchester he persuaded me to join the Halle Orchestra as a subscriber, and then for more than 60 years we went to the Thursday series of concerts (firstly at the old Free Trade Hall, and then at the Bridgewater Hall), almost without fail. Many old friends really looked forward to joining our fortnightly meetings, and to the drinks we then had at either the Midland Hotel, or then the Bridgewater Hall bar.

When he announced that he was going to retire from legal practice at the age of 50 we were all very surprised; it seemed that he was coming close to an important point in his career. But no – he chose a much quieter life, especially when he found a convenient flat near St John’s Gardens, and a treasured partner in Ian Shaw, and he kept himself (it seemed) as busy as ever. Foreign travel had always been one of Geoffrey’s surprise hobbies; he would come home to tell us of amazing trips to places like Hispaniola, Syria, Montenegro, Sri Lanka, Goa, Cuba, the USSR, always somewhere and something different and possibly strange too. His bookshelves were heaped with old travel volumes.

Over the last 30 years Geoffrey, with assistance from Ian, has almost singlehandedly maintained the urban garden at Rozel Square, largely at his own cost when he planted many rare species, tendering plants and shrubs (some now mature trees) assiduously through all the seasons. If they are going to grow in Manchester at all, they will do so in Rozel Square, as he created his veritable haven of peace, to be seen from his sitting-room window every day.

Michael Shipley