'Travelling until journey's end'. They were both medical students in Birmingham. Maggie, who had previously trained as a nurse, was committed to work for three years with the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel (SPG). Antony 'married into a missionary career'.
After brief service with the Merchant Navy during the war they both went with the SPG to The Charles Johnson Memorial Hospital at Nqutu in Zululand and stayed for 30 years. They built up the hospital on a shoestring to 600 beds but never had a home of their own - up to 15 people met for breakfast in their apartment each morning. They never owned a car.
Their reputation became legendary. They demanded the highest medical standards compatible with the resources in the hospital and developed a community service sensitive to the felt needs of the people without downgrading the hospital.
They had countless visitors from students to academics, such as the author of this book, who was a professor of medicine in the University of Natal. They had their disappointments - Maggie especially that they had no children of their own, and Antony who was invited to apply for a post to establish a Department of Community Medicine in Durban and was then turned down by the state. They would have succeeded anywhere and subsequently ran the Accident and Emergency Service at St George's Hospital in London. However, the fascination of this book is its study of how they worked, lived, entertained and cycled together.
The hospital at Nqutu was a haven of racial harmony at a time when apartheid was becoming its worst. Maggie especially made everyone feel important though she always took the back seat and her influence was not always recognised. When Antony went (on his cycle) to Buckingham Palace to receive his CBE he is reputed to have said to her 'I hope you don't mind about this Mags!' She replied 'No, I don't, so long as you do.' They were not evangelistic verbally but their faith was central to their lives from schooldays on and was seen in their works, their worship and their words. Antony was about to speak to the students in Natal University and they were going to give him a hard time. He announced 'I am what is known as a Jesus freak' and received a hearing.
They had wanted to die together, and this happened on their tandem after celebrating their golden wedding and revisiting the scenes of their honeymoon in the Lake District. Besides multiple injuries the post-mortem revealed subarachnoid bleeding in Antony that may have preceded the accident.
Antony and Maggie Barker - Lives in Tandem Barry Adams. Adams, Long Melford. 1996. 168 pp with 34 photographs in B&W. £10 Pb plus £1 p&p. Obtainable from the author: E B Adams, Fernlea, Hall Street, Long Melford, Suffolk CO10 9HZ
After brief service with the Merchant Navy during the war they both went with the SPG to The Charles Johnson Memorial Hospital at Nqutu in Zululand and stayed for 30 years. They built up the hospital on a shoestring to 600 beds but never had a home of their own - up to 15 people met for breakfast in their apartment each morning. They never owned a car.
Their reputation became legendary. They demanded the highest medical standards compatible with the resources in the hospital and developed a community service sensitive to the felt needs of the people without downgrading the hospital.
They had countless visitors from students to academics, such as the author of this book, who was a professor of medicine in the University of Natal. They had their disappointments - Maggie especially that they had no children of their own, and Antony who was invited to apply for a post to establish a Department of Community Medicine in Durban and was then turned down by the state. They would have succeeded anywhere and subsequently ran the Accident and Emergency Service at St George's Hospital in London. However, the fascination of this book is its study of how they worked, lived, entertained and cycled together.
The hospital at Nqutu was a haven of racial harmony at a time when apartheid was becoming its worst. Maggie especially made everyone feel important though she always took the back seat and her influence was not always recognised. When Antony went (on his cycle) to Buckingham Palace to receive his CBE he is reputed to have said to her 'I hope you don't mind about this Mags!' She replied 'No, I don't, so long as you do.' They were not evangelistic verbally but their faith was central to their lives from schooldays on and was seen in their works, their worship and their words. Antony was about to speak to the students in Natal University and they were going to give him a hard time. He announced 'I am what is known as a Jesus freak' and received a hearing.
They had wanted to die together, and this happened on their tandem after celebrating their golden wedding and revisiting the scenes of their honeymoon in the Lake District. Besides multiple injuries the post-mortem revealed subarachnoid bleeding in Antony that may have preceded the accident.
Antony and Maggie Barker - Lives in Tandem Barry Adams. Adams, Long Melford. 1996. 168 pp with 34 photographs in B&W. £10 Pb plus £1 p&p. Obtainable from the author: E B Adams, Fernlea, Hall Street, Long Melford, Suffolk CO10 9HZ
