Click the picture below to see a photo album about Tom's life.
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| Tom's Life |
Sunday 25 February 2007
Funeral Addresses
FUNERAL ADDRESSES
12th February 2007
HARALD RIES
I grew up in the mountains of Romania, where my parents were assigned their first positions as the doctors for the local mine. What was meant as punishment for political incorrectness was in fact most lucky circumstance. Rather than us being isolated, many of my parents’ friends from student times in the city of Timisoara loved to visit and spend their vacation in the wonderful landscape, with hikes and parties, a lot of intellectual talk and classical music in the evenings.
We children loved these vacations and I particularly liked Tom Barta, who did wonderful pencil and India ink drawings. When I was too obnoxious, he would draw a rectangle left pristine white. When I demanded what this might be he explained that this illustrated and arctic landscape in the fog.
If I did not get the point and pressed for something different, he would add as an encore another rectangle, which he then meticulously filled with black and entitled Hottentot fighters in a cave at night.
When Tom emigrated to London, I was in high school. I knew of Tom’s fight to arrange for Edmee to escape Romania, as we visited her in Bucharest on one occasion. Only later did I learn that Tom was also instrumental in my family’s escape, in 1970. When I finished A-levels in Germany two years later, Tom did his best to enrol me in a good university in this country. I did not study in the UK, because at that time I had a girlfriend and feared the relationship would not survive the distance. When I told Tom this, he was incredibly understanding. He did not say any of the things a 19-year-old would fearfully expect in such circumstances. Nor was he disappointed – at least he did not show it. He asked only a few questions. One was, does she have a sense of humour? This is what Tom really valued.
We were invited many times to London, where we enjoyed the hospitality of Tom and Edmee. They showed us around, showed us London, the museums, art, history, the countryside. But not only that, we could bring our student friends with us and they would all be treated as members of the family. I only had to ensure that they lived up to Tom’s standards. I always knew when I succeeded and when not because – later, in private – Tom was very frank about who was a ‘nice chap’ and who had ‘no colour, no smell, no taste’ as he would put it in Romanian, citing chemistry textbooks. When I did well, I could enjoy double rewards: Tom’s praise for bringing interesting people to his house and my buddies’ envy for the fine friend I had in London.
‘
Tom and Edmee were not reluctant to be our guests in the student house in Munich where we lived in a lively commune of seven students 30 years ago.
I learned a lot from Tom, such as that the sculptures on the arches of Gothic churches (he loved churches) actually serve a technical purpose, to keep the stress tensor in the compression regime. I loved his wonderful mix of humour, serious curiosity and playful scientific endeavour. Last year, he planned to write a book on shells and asked me to contribute a chapter on freeform surfaces. Unfortunately, this project we could not finish.
I will miss Tom Barta very much.
CRISTINA HOWICK
I have known Tom Barta all my life. The friendship between our families goes back more than 80 years. My mother Sanda tells me that her parents and Tom’s parents both employed nannies and as the nannies wheeled their charges round the park they became friends. So this is how the friendship started, in a Romanian town called Timisoara in the 1920s.
Personally I owe a great deal to Tom. It is thanks to his kindness and generosity as a family friend that I came to spend all my adult life in Britain. My parents, my grandmother and I left Romania a couple of years after Tom did, in 1965. Tom was already settled in Belsize Park, North London, with his mother. Our family was wandering round Europe rather aimlessly, and very joblessly, as immigrants and refugees do, and Tom encouraged and helped my mother to find a job and a home in London. Once we got there, he met us at what was then the West London Air Terminal, he left on our kitchen table a book called How to be an Alien, and he supported us in every way as we tried to find our way in the strange country that was 1960s Britain. People were kind to us here and we have had a good life.
We will all miss Tom very much but all of us are happy and fortunate to have known him. We will not forget him.
ROBIN ARTHUR
Tom and I arrived at UCL simultaneously as part of Henry Chilver’s wonderfully diverse recruitment for the Civil Engineering Department. This diversity was itself a great tonic for the Department. Tom’s proficiency in languages was a huge plus, even without considering his great mathematical and engineering skills. For my diffident self he was an ideal support for starting up on teaching. He never seemed to appreciate this. His enthusiasms for his new country, new city and new university were infectious. Also he took delight in getting to know our home life and it was of course a pleasure to us as a family.
Although our subject areas did not really overlap, the friendship continued through our years at UCL. Tom had, as everyone here knows, great loyalty; he stood by his friends. Shortly after my retirement and quite a long time after his, he made the journey up to Suffolk with Edmee to see an exhibition of Margaret’s. More recently, he came to our son’s wedding. We miss him.
JUDITH HERTANU
This is indeed a sad day. My husband Herold and I would like to be with you on this day, if not in person at least by sending you our thoughts. It is an occasion to remember Tom’s long and fulfilling life.
Tom and I grew up in the same city, namely Timisoara, Romania. In my earliest recollection I see Tom as a slender, tall young man with glasses, who was asked by my mother to teach me, at age 13, the basics of maths and algebra. It was hopeless task for Tom and we soon gave up on it.
I did not meet him until years later, at which time he was married to my friend Edmee. I became a frequent guest of theirs in Epsom. I renewed my friendship with Tom, who became my very talented and knowledgeable guide to London, the city he loved.
Tom had a great sense of ‘joie de vivre’, he loved to teach, he loved his life with Edmee and he loved to travel.
These are some of my fondest memories of him, the four of use travelling through Europe together, visiting the old and venerable library of Prague University, the beauties of Italy and Provence. Tom loved good food. I remember a starlit night in a small restaurant in Split, Croatia, where he ordered a large amount of food. The young waiter addressed him in broken English and said:
‘Sir, you ordered Chevapcici, French fries, a portion of Wiener Schnitzel, will that not be too much for you, at your age?’
These and others are memories that will never fade away.
Tom was also a wise man. Once, while walking with him through the rolling meadows around Epsom, I told him how much I missed my mother, who had recently died.
He looked at me over his glasses and said:
‘As long as you keep talking about her, she will live with you. And so it goes.’
We will be talking about you, Tom, so that you may live with us.
12th February 2007
HARALD RIES
I grew up in the mountains of Romania, where my parents were assigned their first positions as the doctors for the local mine. What was meant as punishment for political incorrectness was in fact most lucky circumstance. Rather than us being isolated, many of my parents’ friends from student times in the city of Timisoara loved to visit and spend their vacation in the wonderful landscape, with hikes and parties, a lot of intellectual talk and classical music in the evenings.
We children loved these vacations and I particularly liked Tom Barta, who did wonderful pencil and India ink drawings. When I was too obnoxious, he would draw a rectangle left pristine white. When I demanded what this might be he explained that this illustrated and arctic landscape in the fog.
If I did not get the point and pressed for something different, he would add as an encore another rectangle, which he then meticulously filled with black and entitled Hottentot fighters in a cave at night.
When Tom emigrated to London, I was in high school. I knew of Tom’s fight to arrange for Edmee to escape Romania, as we visited her in Bucharest on one occasion. Only later did I learn that Tom was also instrumental in my family’s escape, in 1970. When I finished A-levels in Germany two years later, Tom did his best to enrol me in a good university in this country. I did not study in the UK, because at that time I had a girlfriend and feared the relationship would not survive the distance. When I told Tom this, he was incredibly understanding. He did not say any of the things a 19-year-old would fearfully expect in such circumstances. Nor was he disappointed – at least he did not show it. He asked only a few questions. One was, does she have a sense of humour? This is what Tom really valued.
We were invited many times to London, where we enjoyed the hospitality of Tom and Edmee. They showed us around, showed us London, the museums, art, history, the countryside. But not only that, we could bring our student friends with us and they would all be treated as members of the family. I only had to ensure that they lived up to Tom’s standards. I always knew when I succeeded and when not because – later, in private – Tom was very frank about who was a ‘nice chap’ and who had ‘no colour, no smell, no taste’ as he would put it in Romanian, citing chemistry textbooks. When I did well, I could enjoy double rewards: Tom’s praise for bringing interesting people to his house and my buddies’ envy for the fine friend I had in London.
‘
Tom and Edmee were not reluctant to be our guests in the student house in Munich where we lived in a lively commune of seven students 30 years ago.
I learned a lot from Tom, such as that the sculptures on the arches of Gothic churches (he loved churches) actually serve a technical purpose, to keep the stress tensor in the compression regime. I loved his wonderful mix of humour, serious curiosity and playful scientific endeavour. Last year, he planned to write a book on shells and asked me to contribute a chapter on freeform surfaces. Unfortunately, this project we could not finish.
I will miss Tom Barta very much.
CRISTINA HOWICK
I have known Tom Barta all my life. The friendship between our families goes back more than 80 years. My mother Sanda tells me that her parents and Tom’s parents both employed nannies and as the nannies wheeled their charges round the park they became friends. So this is how the friendship started, in a Romanian town called Timisoara in the 1920s.
Personally I owe a great deal to Tom. It is thanks to his kindness and generosity as a family friend that I came to spend all my adult life in Britain. My parents, my grandmother and I left Romania a couple of years after Tom did, in 1965. Tom was already settled in Belsize Park, North London, with his mother. Our family was wandering round Europe rather aimlessly, and very joblessly, as immigrants and refugees do, and Tom encouraged and helped my mother to find a job and a home in London. Once we got there, he met us at what was then the West London Air Terminal, he left on our kitchen table a book called How to be an Alien, and he supported us in every way as we tried to find our way in the strange country that was 1960s Britain. People were kind to us here and we have had a good life.
We will all miss Tom very much but all of us are happy and fortunate to have known him. We will not forget him.
ROBIN ARTHUR
Tom and I arrived at UCL simultaneously as part of Henry Chilver’s wonderfully diverse recruitment for the Civil Engineering Department. This diversity was itself a great tonic for the Department. Tom’s proficiency in languages was a huge plus, even without considering his great mathematical and engineering skills. For my diffident self he was an ideal support for starting up on teaching. He never seemed to appreciate this. His enthusiasms for his new country, new city and new university were infectious. Also he took delight in getting to know our home life and it was of course a pleasure to us as a family.
Although our subject areas did not really overlap, the friendship continued through our years at UCL. Tom had, as everyone here knows, great loyalty; he stood by his friends. Shortly after my retirement and quite a long time after his, he made the journey up to Suffolk with Edmee to see an exhibition of Margaret’s. More recently, he came to our son’s wedding. We miss him.
JUDITH HERTANU
This is indeed a sad day. My husband Herold and I would like to be with you on this day, if not in person at least by sending you our thoughts. It is an occasion to remember Tom’s long and fulfilling life.
Tom and I grew up in the same city, namely Timisoara, Romania. In my earliest recollection I see Tom as a slender, tall young man with glasses, who was asked by my mother to teach me, at age 13, the basics of maths and algebra. It was hopeless task for Tom and we soon gave up on it.
I did not meet him until years later, at which time he was married to my friend Edmee. I became a frequent guest of theirs in Epsom. I renewed my friendship with Tom, who became my very talented and knowledgeable guide to London, the city he loved.
Tom had a great sense of ‘joie de vivre’, he loved to teach, he loved his life with Edmee and he loved to travel.
These are some of my fondest memories of him, the four of use travelling through Europe together, visiting the old and venerable library of Prague University, the beauties of Italy and Provence. Tom loved good food. I remember a starlit night in a small restaurant in Split, Croatia, where he ordered a large amount of food. The young waiter addressed him in broken English and said:
‘Sir, you ordered Chevapcici, French fries, a portion of Wiener Schnitzel, will that not be too much for you, at your age?’
These and others are memories that will never fade away.
Tom was also a wise man. Once, while walking with him through the rolling meadows around Epsom, I told him how much I missed my mother, who had recently died.
He looked at me over his glasses and said:
‘As long as you keep talking about her, she will live with you. And so it goes.’
We will be talking about you, Tom, so that you may live with us.
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