Our father, Pat Bearfield, who has died aged 88, was one of life’s quiet Samaritans. Catholicism was one of the pillars of his life, a concern for social justice was the other. As a young man he joined the Society of St Vincent de Paul, tending to the sick, needy and destitute of the parish. As a wood machinist with the London Co-op he was an active trade unionist, but at 36, with a wife and six daughters to support, he retrained as a probation officer.
For many years he was senior officer at Wormwood Scrubs prison, where he always prioritised rehabilitation. In 1975, as deputy manager of the Bulldog Manpower Services Scheme, he was at the forefront of helping ex-offenders into a “lawful, self-sufficient and wage-earning way of life”. In recognition of this work in 1979 he was invited to Buckingham Palace.
Dad once said that, apart from a couple of psychopaths (and he was probation officer to Ian Brady for a time), he’d never met a murderer he didn’t like. He passionately believed that while there were bad actions, there were very few truly bad people: “Give the boy a chance” was his motto, and he never wavered in his belief in the capacity of people to change.
On his retirement in 1987 a colleague from Portland borstal said: “His words of wisdom, his willingness to give so freely of his time and himself, and his ever present sense of balance, good humour and humanity will be very hard to replace.”
He worked with the Catholic Social Services for Prisoners and as grand knight of the Knights of St Columba at his local church, he raised the funds to build a youth hall for able-bodied and disabled young people of all faiths. For this, in 1999, he received the Benemerenti medal from the pope, the highest accolade for a layperson.
Pat grew up in Barking, with his parents, George Roberts Bearfield, a Co-op milk man, and Annie (nee Shead), who worked in the match factory, and two younger sisters, Joan and Teresa. He went to St Mary and St Ethelburga’s school, which is where he met his wife, Sheila Donald. They had little to do with each other at school (although there is a story of him dipping her plaits in the inkwell) and he only asked her out much later. They were married in 1949, and spent their life together in Ilford, Essex.
Retirement gave him the time for his other passion – painting. As “Pat the Paint” he was a stalwart of the Ilford Art Society, even after macular degeneration robbed him of most of his sight.
To his wife Sheila and six daughters – Catherine, Mary, Anne, Jane, Clare and Helen – his commitment to fairness, justice and hope, meant that this working-class boy from Barking, who left school at 14, had a seam of pure nobility running through him. They all survive him, as do his sisters, 16 grandchildren and eight great-grandchildren.
