With the death of Rex Baker, SPC has lost a long-standing and loyal supporter who has done so much for the Club. Rex was a Committee member for many years and he had also served as the Club’s Chairman. His wise counsel was always welcomed and respected. He was much in demand as a reader, his strong clear voice being instantly recognisable and, in the past, he had also performed with several amateur dramatic companies.
Rex had a love for the theatre and for the Arts in general. He wrote mainly one-act plays, a number of which were read at SPC, and he was a published poet. Earlier this year, he read one of his own poems (from a Puffin poetry anthology, published in India) at a meeting of Poetry For Pleasure, the Hove-based group that he also helped to run.
For many years, Rex gave of his time to assist with the judging of the SPC’s annual playwriting competition and, like all he undertook, he did this with skill and commitment. For a period, he ran the Club’s Christmas sessions – and his fiendishly clever literary quizzes became legend, for which he kindly donated quality books as prizes.
Rex attended the Club’s 80th Anniversary meeting in October and he was a reader at the November meeting which, sadly, was to be his last time at the Club as he died of a heart attack at his home about a week later. With his passing, a considerable gap has been left at SPC. Rex was always supportive of fellow members and his friendly manner and dry sense of humour will be much missed.
Before retiring, Rex had worked overseas for the British Council and he was the proud holder of an OBE.
Trevor Harvey