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Obituaries
Charles Barker F72
Charles enjoyed his years at Canford. A stalwart of the school theatre often being cast in a leading role he represented both house and school at rugby and cricket and was an enthusiastic participant in Adventure Training. I remember, with absolutely no fondness but with some admiration, his successful leadership of a group of near mutinous slackers of which I was one, yomping across Dartmoor in the middle of a night when it poured with rain for the whole four or five hours of our yomp.
After leaving Canford Charles chose to forge a career in the hospitality industry. Whilst still in his 20’s he became General Manager of The Intercontinental Hotel at Hyde Park Corner and then The Mayfair after which he went overseas to run high end hotels and clubs all over the world only returning to the UK for a couple of years when he ran The Leander Club at Henley.
Charles lived life to the full and after he retired to Islamabad, Pakistan with his wife Shahnaz it was not a surprise to hear that he had turned his hand to motivational speaking and that he was delivering university lectures on a variety of subjects including climate change, leadership and the development of tourism and hospitality. Charles had long been passionate about the ocean and the animals that lived in it and he was an Advisory Board member of the Hong Kong Shark Foundation.
His passion for the safeguarding of animals was not limited to marine dwellers and he had recently become CEO of Second Chance Wildlife which rescues, rehabilitates and rehomes injured and traumatised animals. In amongst all this Charles found time to write novels, four of which had been published.
I met Charles at prep school, we were in the same house at Canford and were each other’s best man at our respective weddings. Our friendship endured for 60 years until he died in Islamabad on Boxing Day after a short illness.
Charles was a kind, fun-loving, generous man. He was interested in people and the countries that he lived in. Charles is survived by his wife Shahnaz and daughters from his first marriage Grace and Rose.
