Kenneth BarrieSMITHSMITH Kenneth (Barrie) His life – hard working provider, persevering, devoted husband, Dad,
Grandfather and faithful friend...
Mr. Kenneth Barrie Smith, residing at Gonerby Hill Foot, Grantham, Lincolnshire, passed away to be with his Lord, Jesus Christ, peacefully at home on June 6, 2025 after a short illness. Barrie was “born and bred” to Arthur and Ivy (nee Gibson) Smith at the Poperinghe Nursing Home in Cottingham, East Riding, Yorkshire.
His boyhood was spent riding his bicycle around Cottingham and Skidby, sliding during winters on the frozen drain ditches, putting on magic trick shows for his extended family, from behind the pulled- back, between-room draperies, digging his unique underground dens in the back garden, between the house and the “ten foot,” stacking and guarding his wood pile prepared for Bonfire Night, creating and running his pay-to-borrow lending library and of course, growing flowers and shrubs in his parent’s garden. Always keen to learn, he was a Member of the Gardener’s Book Club at his secondary school.
He attended local Cottingham schools and received a General Certificate of Education from
Cottingham County Secondary School in May 1958. He was a school Prefect and received a First Class in Drawing, Science and English. His keenest areas of interest lay between woodworking and horticulture. Standing at the threshold of these two choices upon his commencement, he chose the path of horticulture, never looking back.
At a young age of sixteen, he left home for a job as a “Boy Gardener” at the Bishop Burton College’s walled garden and greenhouses, under the tutelage of the Head Gardener. He joined the Bishop Burton Youth Club and made friends participating in the club’s activities.
Always striving to improve himself, Barrie undertook a course of theoretical and practical education at Askym Bryan Institute of Agriculture in York. He earned a National Certificate in Horticulture, July 1961, passing requisite written and practical examinations of the Royal Horticultural Society in Division II. Studying from 1960 – 1961, Barrie earned the Certificate with Credit.
After graduation, he moved into the city of York to work for the York Parks Department, working out of the Museum Gardens. After this position, Barrie returned to Askym Bryan Institute of Agriculture to work for their commercial organisation. He was in charge of the glasshouses producing cucumbers, tomatoes and chrysanthemums, as well as giving practical tuition to students.
During this time in York, he met Jean Thompson, of Copmanthorpe, York, whom he married in 1966. They made their home in Grimsby and then Scartho, Humberston, as Barrie had made a significant change in his career in 1965, moving into commercial processing vegetable production, as he became an Assistant Field Trials Officer for Findus Foods, in Grimsby, with their agricultural division. He was so pleased to have a company car with this position, but soon found out why, working exceptionally long hours and clocking up 50,000 miles per year as he drove between trials on farms in northeast Lincolnshire and Boston in the south of the county.
He eventually became the Field Trials Superintendent and expanded the regional programs on farms and set up the Waltham Agricultural Department. Barrie was responsible for planning and supervising trial planting, evaluation and harvesting of hundreds of varieties and even more plots of peas, French beans, Brussels sprouts, broad beans, carrots, calabrese, parsley, swedes and marrows.
Barrie increased the trialling acreage which was less than three, to six acres in the south of
Lincolnshire and Binbrook in the north. He developed ideal plant populations, fertility and pest
control requirements for accurate evaluation. He was back and forth between Grimsby and the various areas several times a day, checking pea tenderometer readings and varietal maturities throughout a long growing season. He had one full time assistant, one seasonal assistant, and hired seasonal students who were quite loyal to Barrie, working long hours, year after year, as he believed in treating them well and with respect. His favourites of course, were his “bean girls.”
After sixteen years of exceptionally demanding work, Findus implemented redundancies
companywide. By then, Barrie and Jean had two young children, Caroline and Alexander. Being a hard worker and conscientious provider for his family, he mowed lawns to make ends meet.
In the meantime, Barrie and another ex-Findus employee, started their own company, SONITH
Technical Services. They offered services contracting with private vegetable seed and pesticide companies. This consisted of planting, applying chemicals, evaluating and reporting on replicated trials.
This work so impressed one company, Royal Sluis Seed Company, of Enkhuizen, Holland, that they offered Barrie a new position, to be the Trials Manager for Royal Sluis, Ltd. for the United Kingdom. He worked with his trials assistant in developing a comprehensive trialling program based in Boston, in the south of Lincolnshire as well as trials on farms throughout the UK. From these he was able to demonstrate the merits of Royal Sluis’ varieties to the company’s salesmen and report UK trial results back to the Dutch breeders.
After eight years of supplying technical data to support sales, design varietal technical bulletins and catalogues, Barrie was again made redundant. He was offered two positions and again had to choose a path of either working for Incotec, Royal Sluis’ seed enhancement division or Petoseed in a new position as Product Development Manager, covering vegetable product development, research and sales in the United Kingdom. He chose the latter, and loved working with the freedom and minimal hierarchy of the American based company, using his connections and experience, to put Petoseed on the map in the United Kingdom.
After a few years, there was a period of intensive change and company buyouts. Petoseed was merged with Royal Sluis and Asgrow Seeds, an American company. Again, Barrie was immersed in the complicated and ever-changing hierarchy as the merger created Seminis Vegetable Seeds. It became the overall new company for the three separate companies and then additional smaller companies that were subsequently purchased, to become, at that time, the world’s largest vegetable seed company. Barrie’s titles on his business cards changed as did his responsibilities, holding positions as Petoseed European Product Manager Dry Seeds and Seminis Vegetable Seeds Product Manager Rooted for Europe and the Middle East. He was in charge of onion, carrot and other rooted species’ market analysis, varietal evaluations and promotion to sales, sales forecasts and seed production forecasts. His position was based in Enkhuizen, The Netherlands, but he worked out of his home as well as traveling extensively in Europe, Eastern Europe, several Middle Eastern Countries and the United States.
During this period of traveling, Barrie loved seeing new exotic places and sampling the food and drink. It really widened his horizons and although the travel was tiring, he was stimulated by the various cultures and challenges these can bring. The intense travel and work over the years, however, took its toll on family life, ending his many years with Jean.
In a new chapter of his life, Barrie married Carole (nee Rackowski) Noeller from New York state, USA in 1999. They began a new life together in Grantham, Lincolnshire with Barrie continuing his work and travels until he yet again was caught up in a worldwide company shakeup and made redundant a year after his new marriage. But ever a good provider, he took a job gardening for an estate of a venture capitalist and even worked in the library part time.
It was with good fortune that PGRO, Processors and Growers Research Organisation, Thornhaugh, Cambridgeshire, were familiar with Barrie’s work and mutual associations over the years, and created a position for him, as a Senior Technical Officer. He spent eight years there expanding PGRO’s research to include carrot variety evaluations, including Pythium Cavity Spot screening, edamame bean varietal evaluations, the first in the UK, flageolet and French beans varietal evaluations, precision drilling pea sowing research, PCGIN (Pulse Cultivar Genetic Improvement Network) evaluations of exotic pea species for ADHB (Agriculture Development and Horticultural Board) and John Innes Institute, research to support labelling of garlic granules for carrot and parsnip nematode control, and design and implementation of multi-species vegetable variety plots for Syngenta Seeds, as a living demonstration catalogue for several years.
As UK laws regarding retirement were about to change, he was “encouraged” to retire from PGRO. But this was not for Barrie and again he started his own company, KBS International Horticultural Consultancy Services. Procuring several assignments, he eventually settled into a longtime relationship with Pro-Veg Seeds, Ltd. Cambridge, in 2011, as a consultant working in Product Development and sales of certain species.
Although working with all of Pro-Veg’s product line, Barrie returned to working with flowers in
trialling, promoting and selling commercial cut sunflower varieties for the bouquet market, as well as garden and pot sunflowers. This led him to work with breeders in Israel, Australia and The Netherlands, which he enjoyed.
He also continued working with his favourite species, alliums, which led to development and seed production and sales responsibilities for eschallions, developing “Zebrune,” pink onion “Isobel Rose,” and evaluating, marketing and sales of other bulb and salad bunching onions.
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