“IN perfect April weather 900 feet up on the Malvern Hills near British Camp and overlooking Blackhill, his old home, a memorial to Sir Barry Jackson was unveiled by Dame Edith Evans in Tuesday,”

reported the Malvern Gazette 50 years ago.

“Sir Barry was founder and director of the Birmingham Repertory Theatre, founder with the late Roy Limbert of the Malvern Drama Festival, and director of the Stratford-on-Avon Shakespeare Theatre. He was for more than 45 years a resident of Malvern, and his two homes (he moved a short while before his death) are adjacent to the memorial, which takes the form of a semi-circle of trees, cypress, beech, oak, and one blue cedar, and eight seats looking away to the Welsh mountains.

“Heading the array of famous personalities was Dame Edith Evans, the star of his first Malvern Festival in 1929, who unveiled a bronze plaque mounted on a large block of hill granite. The plaque recorded Sir Barry’s years of achievement and has on it the quotation from Elizabethan playwright Andrew Marvell, ‘He nothing common did or mean’.

“Mr W S Brettell, organiser of the appeal, said Sir Barry was by nature a charming gentleman. He was a most modest and unassuming man and was a giant among men of the theatre.

“‘We here have very special reasons for remembering Sir Barry. It was in his home nearby that the drama festival that made Malvern world famous originated. He would have been immensely gratified and deeply touched to know the regard in which he was held.”