BACKGROUND TO BARBARA WARD

New Zealand Listener, Volume 14, Issue 357, 26 April 1946, Page 12

BACKGROUND TO BARBARA WARD

PRARBARA WARD is already fairly well known to our readers, both as a broadcaster and as assistant-editor of "The Economist," and she has once appeared on our cover. She figures in the new BBC "Brains Trust" series just beginning from the National Stations and will be heard in the session from 2YA on Friday, May 3, at 8.28 p.m., so our readers should be interested in this biography of Miss Ward -"one of the most striking figures of her generation’-which we reprint from "Picture Post." It was written by Antonia White.

heard a good deal about Barbara Ward, I went to a "Sword of the Spirit" meeting at which she was to speak. On the way into the hall, I saw a nun I knew talking to a slim, attractive, very well-dressed girl of a type you rarely see at pious or political gatherings. The nun stopped me and said, "I don’t think you’ve met Barbara, have you?" Most celebrities on such occasions greet one with some muttered politeness and an absent eye. But Barbara immediately began to talk to me as naturally as if she had just run into an old friend at a cocktail party. I had the impression, not effaced by many subsequent meetings, of freshness, frankness, radiance and a curious innocent sophistication. Also of disarming, childlike confidence, a very warm heart and a very determined will. On the face of things, no one could be more successful or more enviable than Barbara Ward is at this moment. Only thirty-one (and looking considerably younger), she has made a triple name as public speaker, broadcaster and political journalist. She is pretty, full of life and zest, and she seems to have an infinite capacity for making and keeping friends. All her life she has found it easier to say "Yes" than "No," as is natural to someone so versatile and so sociable. Without this characteristic she would not be a A two years ago, having

notable figure in so many fields. Yet she is aware that it may be a dangerous habit and one which might lead to the dissipation of her powers. Happy Childhood Her childhood must have been among the happiest on record. She has ideal parents, a Catholic mother and a father with Quaker sympathies, who live in such harmony that she never remembers hearing an angry word at home. They are, moreover, firm believers in liberal education for women. Barbara had the chance of discovering and developing all her talents in a varied training which included a convent school

in England, the lLyce Moliére, the Sorbonne, one year in Germany and three at Oxford. The odd thing is that Barbara never had any intention of adopting any of the professions she now so successfully practises. She decided on her future while she was still a child, and all through that long and liberal education she never waveted in her ambition. Among her many gifts she has a charming, pure soprano of considerable range. At Oxford she read Philosophy and Political Economy, and was the only woman of her year to take a first in Modern Greats. When the Principal of Somerville sent for this brilliant student to discuss her career, Barbara replied without hesitation, "I want to be an opera singer." The Principal’s only comment was, "In that case, I fear we can do nothing for you." ¥ : Influence of Religion When she went down, at 21, she had arrived at a critical point. At Oxford she had been a decorative and ubiquitous figure. Not. only had she worked, but she had ridden, danced, sung, fenced, acted, and gone to all the parties. Mainly through the influence of Margery Fry, she had become interested in politics, especially in international affairs. She had also become intellectually dissatisfied with the Catholic religion and no longer believed or practised it. Now she felt the time had come to stand still and

take stock of herself. She went away alone in order to be quiet and to think things out, One result of this temporary retreat was that she decided to make the Catholic religion henceforth the centre and mainspring of her life. The other result of her stocktaking was that she totally gave up the idea of becoming an opera singer. Immediately and ironically a telegram arrived, offering her a student vacancy in a well-known company. She refused it without a qualm. Her position was thus the exact opposite of most brilliant young people who had just left the University. She had worked on her spiritual position, but she had not the faintest idea of what roads she was going to take in the world. Within a few months of coming down from Oxford she becdme, at someone else’s suggestion, a University Extension Lecturer. Her subject was the one that had begun to interest her at Somerville -foreign affairs. She is an excellent linguist and, when she was abroad, she had always had the "feel" of a country without being at all politically conscious. Now her knowledge was to become wider and deeper. For three years she lectured in the winter and travelled in the summer, visiting Germany, Austria, Italy and

Turkey. Lecturing showed that she had a quite remarkable gift for public speaking. Her singing lessons had taught her to produce her flexible and attractive voice; her acting experience helped her to make real contact with her audience. If you have: only heard her on the Brains Trust, you have no idea what she can do when she is speaking to people in the same room. Without any tricks, or the least straining or over-emphasis, she can rouse the sleepiest audience. There are times when she really seems to be inspired. From Platform to Paper In 1937 (she was then 22) Nelson’s asked her to write a book. Once more, you notice, the suggestion came from outside. The result was International Shareout, which dealt mainly with Colonial problems. The book, which appeared in 1938, was a success and Barbara found that she could convince on paper as well as on a platform. It only remained for an editor to notice that here was someone with the makings of a first-class political journalist. Quite soon an editor did so. In 1939 Geoffrey Crowther invited her to contribute free-lance articles to The Economist. By 1940 she was assistanteditor, specialising in Foreign Affairs. Another new field opened in 1940, one which gave her scope to express her deepect convictions. Cardinal Hinsley, in

founding The Sword of the Spirit, launched a movement to rally Catholics behind the nation’s just cause and rouse them to co-operate with other Christian bodies in studying the great social questions of the day. From the first, Barbara took a leading part in it. In the intervals of her hard, full-time job on The Economist she went all over the country, usually travelling by night, speaking at "Sword" meetings, especially during the "Joint Christian Weeks." Barbara has an intense personal religion. She believes, however, that Christianity is not a private spiritual luxury, nor something to be kept apart from daily life, but a living force to be applied to public affairs as well as to private conduct. The Brains Trust In 1943 Barbara said "Yes" once more; this time to the BBC. I asked her what she considered the real point of the Brains Trust programme, which is second only in popularity to Tommy Handley. Her answer was, "It isn’t supposed to be a fount of information but a lesson in conversation." So far, on her way through life, Barbara Ward has encountered neither opposition nor failure. Her personality is so charming that people instinctively want to smooth her path. Yet her genuinely childlike quality may conceivably

isolate her too much from the darkness and complexity of ordinary human nature, from those confusing factors for which any reformer must allow if he is not to end in disillusion. There are many things which she now knows only by hearsay, and which she may have to discover painfully for herself, as she rediscovered her faith, working against the grain instead of, however efficiently, with it. The time may be coming when she will have to say "No" to much that she finds delightful and interesting and take a path where the going is rougher and the rewards less immediate. One feels that she realises this herself and that, at thirty-one, she may be on the verge of another stocktaking. She is one of the most striking figures of her generation, she has already collected more laurels than most women collect in a lifetime, but I, for one, wait with intense eagerness to see what Barbara will be doing when she is forty.