Honey Barrett founder, Michael Barrett sadly passes away
It is with deep sadness Honey Barrett would like to inform clients, colleagues and friends that after a long battle with dementia Michael Barrett has passed away.
As a founding partner of Honey Barrett we are all saddened by this news and would like to send our sincerest condolences to his family.
We have many fond memories of Michael as a much respected boss and colleague and in his memory the firm will be making a donation to the Alzheimer's Society.
Michael or MDB as he was known, joined Bill Honey in partnership in 1968 and the firm grew rapidly over the years. After many years in practice, MDB moved into industry for some years, whilst still remaining in touch with the partnership. He returned to head up our financial services arm in the 1980's until his retirement on its management buy-out.
Michel is pictured below at our Ball held in 2013 to mark the 50th anniversary of the firm.
Longstanding clients might also recognise MDB in the photo below – taken at our 1974 firm's conference to celebrate the acquisition of Foreman Frank accountants who had offices in Lewes and Haywards Heath.
Liz Densley commented:
“I was articled to Mr Barrett when I joined in 1971 and consider myself to be very fortunate to have been given a chance to train with Honey Barrett, back in the days when there were very few women in accountancy (only 3 out of 200 on my finals course!). Talking to MDB after he retired – he used to pop into the office from time to time to see how we were going - he did comment that he wasn't sure if it was the length of my skirt or my A level results that got me the job – I suspect there may have been an element of truth in that! Thankfully things have changed a lot since then – now 50% of our directors and all our managers are female. Whilst the firm now is very different to when it was under the control of Mr Honey and Mr Barrett, we've retained the same ethos that was instilled in us from the start as we trained – put the clients first, and the rest will follow. We owe him a lot.”