My friend Berry Mayall, who has died aged 85 of cancer, was an indefatigable academic, and wanted to go on making a difference for as long as she could. She was not religious, but she came from a Methodist background, and her attitudes were grounded in the idea of service to others and modest consumption.
Visiting her in her tiny cottage in Suffolk was like going back to an earlier age, not just minimalist, but without any unnecessary comfort or decoration. She also grew fruit and vegetables in the garden there, and at an allotment in London, where she had a flat in a house shared with her daughter and grandchildren.
Berry was born in Leicester, the youngest of the three children of Dorothy and George Standing; her mother taught tailoring at the WI and her father was a schoolteacher. She graduated in English from Newnham College, Cambridge, in 1958, but came to academia late, after teaching and social work jobs.
All her academic life was spent at the Institute of Education (now part of UCL), from the time she joined in 1973 as a researcher at its Thomas Coram Research Unit under Professor Jack Tizard. After her cancer was operated on in 2018 she hoped to go back to her work, but eventually in 2019 she accepted retirement and in 2021 was made professor emeritus.
She made an international impact with her work on childhood. Children she thought of as equals, regarding them as being oppressed in everyday life. She was also furious at government policies that made life difficult for children, especially those living in poor circumstances. Her legacy of analytical papers and books explores the constraints of being a child, in different eras, and in different societal settings.
Visionary Women and Visible Children: England 1900-1920 (2017) was her last paper. A good mentor, she would carefully read through the work of students and colleagues, expecting everything to be well written. She was also very supportive and a good listener when there were personal difficulties.
She was not entirely self-denying. Once a month she and I used to go to Sunday morning Bach concerts at the Royal Academy of Music, and have lunch out afterwards, although she was exceptionally scrupulous in sharing out the costs. We went together on occasional trips abroad, usually centred around attendance at a conference. On these trips she was notoriously irritable and anxious, making her a difficult travelling companion, but she always perked up and enjoyed small and unexpected events, and made insightful observations.
In 1964 she married James Mayall. Though they parted company early on, they remained on good terms. She is survived by her daughter, Hannah, and four grandchildren, and by her sister, Gillie.
