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Community Corner

Sir Barry Simons to Reprise Annual Role in Memorial Day Parade

A decorated WWII veteran with the British special forces, veteran of the English theater, former circus performer, English "bobby", race car driver, animal trainer, and now a television and radio host, Sir Barry Simons is embraced as a Tolland tradition.

On Sunday Tolland will hold its Memorial Day parade, a tradition now in its 20th year.

The parade will include another long-held tradition when Tolland resident and transplanted native of England, Sir Barry Simons will recite "For the Fallen," a poem by Laurence Binyon written in memory of those who sacrificed their lives in WWI.

No stranger to war, Simons served in the British special forces during WWII. He said he enlisted illegally at the age of 16, claiming his birth certificate was destroyed in an air raid. 

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"They just had to take my word for it [about my age]," said Simons, who during his years of service earned the 1939-1945 Star, the France and Germany Star, the War Service Medal and Defense Medal, among others. Since leaving the army he said he has never missed a Memorial Day parade.

"Memorial Day in the UK is very different," Simons said. "It used to always be held on November 11, and I can remember a time when at the eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month, which is when the [armistice agreement] that ended the first world war was signed, all the buses and traffic would stop in the middle of the road and everyone would stop what they were doing for two minutes to commemorate the moment," he said.

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Simons first became involved in Tolland's annual parade when he saw an article years ago in a local newspaper calling for veterans to participate. At some point, he noticed that there was no one saying anything at the parade of any dramatic impact. After the town accepted his offer to do so, he did a little research and found a few pieces of poetry that were appropriate.

"I recited In Flanders Fields a couple of times, and then found Laurence's poem. It's beautiful and very relevant. I love it," he said. 

Simons said he participates in the Tolland Memorial Day parade on Sunday, the Vernon parade on Monday as well as the Manchester Veterans Day parade. While he used to march, a massive stroke 13 years ago forced him to slow down some, and now the octogenarian is transported by car.

"I'm still determined to march in one of the parades, and the Manchester parade being quite a bit shorter is the one I can still manage," he said.

While his legs might not be as strong as they used to be, Simons still has a healthy gift for gab, which he puts to good use in his radio and cable-access television programs. The latter, Sir Barry and Friends, is a series of conversations with people from varied walks of life that he regularly produces for the Community Voice Channel.

"Sir Barry is a very engaging person," Perne Maynard, a Tolland resident and former engineer at CVC, who as cameraman and project editor helps put the programs together, said. The two met as members of the Fayette Masonic Lodge in Ellington, where Sir Barry also serves as lodge chaplain.

Prior to moving to the United States, Maynard said Sir Barry was a long time member and past master of the Chelsea Masonic Lodge, a theatrical lodge in London whose members represent most branches of show business, including music halls, variety shows, cinema, radio, television, and the circus.

"He and Peter Sellers were inducted together into the Masons," Maynard said.

For his part, Sir Barry has a long history with the British theater having served as a stage director and manager of various pantomimes. Pantomimes in the British tradition, Sir Barry explained, are typically farces with comedy and music based on such well-known and beloved fairy tales as Cinderella and Puss in Boots.

"I used to write, produce, and direct them," he said.

Spend a few hours with him at his favorite luncheon spot - Papa T's on Merrow Road - and Sir Barry will regal you with stories from his colorful past as a stage manager in the theater, as a circus performer and as a lion tamer to name a few.

For example, there was the time when as a young stage director with the renowned Theater Royal Drury Lane, Sir Barry said his music director went out to lunch before a matinee performance never to return again. With little time to spare and unable to read a single note of music - and not even a baton to conduct the musicians - he decided he needed to do a little improvising.

"I got into the pit and with the utter nerve of the inexperienced, faced the audience and wagged a broken knitting needle at the orchestra," said Sir Barry. "We got a real conductor in for the following performances, but that day I gained a lifetime's experience in about three hours."  

It was a pantomime performance of Puss in Boots that turned Sir Barry into a lion tamer, he said.

As the script was written, Sir Barry said, Puss in Boots travelled to an ogre's tower to rescue a beautiful princess, challenging the ogre to turn himself into various incarnations--such as a horse, a mouse, and a lion to prove his abilities.

"I wanted to use a real lion [in the show] rather than someone in a lion's skin," he said. Having connections from his circus days with a gentleman who captured wild animals in Africa for resale in England, Sir Barry made arrangements to purchase a lion cub for the show.

"I anticipated receiving a cub of about seven months," Sir Barry said, but when the truck driver from British Railways arrived, he was informed that he would need four to six men to help him carry in the crate. "The men were staggering. The crate was 8 feet or 9 feet long, 3 feet wide and 3 feet high. Tania [as Sir Barry chose to name her] wasn't six months. She was about 2-1/2 years old weighing in excess of two hundred pounds," he said.

And so he began the delicate task of earning her trust. Engaging the services of a local butcher, Sir Barry said he began purchasing 10 pounds of raw beef a day, which the butcher cut into fist size pieces. Taking a cane, he whittled down one end to a point so that he could spear the pieces of beef and feed her from it. Each day, he cut a little bit off the length of the spear until he was down to his last piece of beef.

"I took that last piece in my left hand, because I'm right-handed, and dangled it from my fingers," he said. "Tania took it gently from my hand and licked it clean just like a domestic cat. After a while I could put my whole hand in her mouth."

While he never had any children of his own and would be the first to say he doesn't relate well with children, animals are another story all together.

"I loved the sense of kinship I had with Tania. We had each other's total trust," he said. "On the other hand, Ronnie, my tigress, was quite dangerous."

It is these types of stories that make Sir Barry so entertaining and which suggest to Maynard that it would be worthwhile to tape a Sir Barry and Friends show that focuses simply on Sir Barry himself.

"There's so few WWII veterans around anymore. It's his war stories that I'd most like to get documented," Maynard said, recalling a lodge meeting one November when members were asked to share their war stories. Maynard said it was Sir Barry's contributions that left the members speechless.

Sir Barry said he was at the post-war trials in Hamburg, Germany, a smaller set of trials compared to the more infamous trials in Nuremberg.

"In Nuremberg they had the noose. I was on the firing squad in Hamburg," Sir Barry said.

It was his service to his country, as well as to the police and the theater that earned him his knighthood 13 years ago. Unfortunately, the honor coincided with his stroke, and so unable to travel, he could not attend the investiture in person.

It is an honor he holds very dear.

A member of the British Legion, Sir Barry said he would also like to join the American Legion, but so far has not been able to do so as he is not a U. S. citizen.

"I'd like to be [a U.S. citizen]," he said adding that he would if he could retain dual-nationality, but so far no politician has been able to explain to him why it is not allowed. Forsaking his English citizenship is not an option, as he would then be required to give up his knighthood as well.

"No way. I like my title," he said.

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