Peter Barcock
18 September 1939 – 01 August 2024
DIS Engineer, DSS 42; Instrumentation Section Leader, DSS 41
(Written by his friend John Heath.)
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Peter Barcock (right) with Bob Cudmore who recruited him to work at Tidbinbilla. Detail from this 1968 photo taken at Tidbinbilla. |
Peter was recruited in the UK by Bob Cudmore, the then Chief Engineer of Spacetrack in 1968, to be the DIS Engineer at DSS 42, Tidbinbilla I was the Senior Engineer responsible for the RF systems at the time and I did not get to know Peter all that well while he was at Tidbinbilla.
His time at DSS 42 was not very long as he transferred to our sister station DSS 41 at Island Lagoon, Woomera, as the Instrumentation Section Leader, in October 1968. Spacetrack also had the Contract to operate DSS 41 and our paths became more closely interlinked when I too transferred to DSS 41 as the Chief Electronics Engineer in January 1969 and became Peter’s boss.
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Peter and his wife Anita and their three children came from Lancashire, as did my wife Joan, and in the short time we shared in Woomera the two families became close friends.
While he was at Woomera Peter learned of a place called Andamooka where it was said fortunes could be made mining opals. Peter was convinced he was going to be one of the lucky ones and he spent many of his week-ends moving tons of rock from one place to another in search of the colourful stones. I accompanied him on a few of them, and although he managed to find a few pieces of opal, the fortune he was convinced he was going to find eluded him.
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Peter Barcock stands behind John Heath and Station Director Don Cocks in this 1969 DSS41 Island Lagoon staff photo. |
Peter was a restless person, and this combined with Anita’s difficulty in settling into the remote life in Woomera, resulted in the family returning to the UK in October 1969. Soon afterwards he created a successful Company designing and installing ducting installations in commercial and domestic buildings.
The Heath and Barcock families kept in touch over the years, mainly through the efforts of Joan and Anita. Sadly, the communication link weakened following Joan’s death in 2020 and Anita’s ongoing health problems. They were re-established however when my daughter and I visited the UK in August 2023 and stayed with the Barcock family for a few days. Peter was hale and hearty at that time but in July 2024 he contracted pneumonia and as do many elderly people who catch the disease, died of complications.
– John Heath, August 2024.