Thread by @loudribs

Absolutely gutted to hear that this absolutely legend - Barry Smith - has passed away.

If you ever worked in learning disability care in Leeds, or had reason to knock about around the outdoor market, you’ll know Barry. He was beyond one-in-a-million.

We worked together in the first job I had when I washed up in Leeds. Within minutes of meeting me he told me:

“There’s only three things I’ve wanted in life: To be an art teacher, a sheet metal worker and a gunsmith. AND I’VE DONE THEM ALL.”

And that was just the tip of the iceberg as it quickly became apparent that there was nothing about Leeds that he didn’t know. A shift with Barry would take in a grand sweep of local history, from the cholera pit that you happened to be walking over to the history of stamped tin.

In the hands of anyone else, this would have got pretty tiring, pretty quick, but Barry just seemed like an extension of that history - like he was built out of the Yorkshire stone as the rest of the city. He and Leeds were appendages to each other.

And that’s before we even get to him as a care worker: An absolute force of nature, idiosyncratic to a fault, absolutely impossible to manage and LOVED by both clients and colleagues.

It was a pretty rough job we did back then, but nothing - *nothing* - phased Barry.

For me, a wet-behind-the-ears soft Southerner, suddenly thrown into this mad and sometimes pretty brutal setting, Barry was an absolute godsend - this cannonball of wonderful oddness who would slap you round the chops with his charisma and keep you soldiering on.

So yes, RIP Barry Smith - you will be greatly, greatly missed and the world is a far duller place for your passing. Xx