Life of refugee who came to Shrewsbury and helped change Severn Trent forever to be celebrated
A pre-war refugee who became a staunch Conservative and led the privatisation of Severn Trent Water has died at the age of 89.
For the last 25 years John Bellak had lived in Council House Court, off Castle Street in Shrewsbury, but he was born in 1930 in Leipnik near the Polish border in what is now the Czech Republic.
What was then Czechoslovakia was the only democracy in central Europe in the interwar years, but the region was annexed by German forces and declared part of the Third Reich.
John's daughter, Maria Price, said: "Family legend has it that while on holiday in Italy with his sister and mother in 1936, they received a message from his father saying 'don’t come home'.
"They arrived in England two years later speaking little or no English, looking very foreign and knowing nothing of this new culture - it is impossible to imagine what 24 months on the road in late 1930s Europe must have been like for a six-year-old Jewish boy."
But Mr Bellak thrived in English education and his prodigious intelligence meant that aged only 12, he achieved a scholarship a year young to Uppingham - and then at only 17 repeated the feat, to Clare College, Cambridge.
"He often indulgently lamented 'the genes must have peaked with me!'," said Maria. Her father spoke Spanish, German, English and French.
According to the family he was outward-looking right to the end, having recovered from Covid in April 2020 after contracting it on a trip to the opera.
He died on September 5 and the funeral service will be held at St Chad's Church, in Shrewsbury, from 3pm tomorrow this Friday.
His life in business was long and varied, starting out in Yorkshire in the wool business, but he was always political. A dyed-in-the-wool Conservative, he stood a couple of times in safe Labour seats cutting his teeth. But he had to stop on the birth of his fourth and last child, his family say, because he couldn’t afford it any more.
He was very involved with the local Conservative party during his retirement and also served as the non-executive director.
He kept himself busy with travel to exotic places like Ethiopia, Everest's base camp, India several times, and Malaysia. And he took regular trips to London to visit friends, art galleries and grandchildren.
Mr Ballak had moved to Stoke-on-Trent in 1970 as marketing director of Royal Doulton.
He became the company's managing director and chairman there before being recruited to become the chairman of Severn Trent to take it through privatisation, where he clashed with opponents of the move.
Maria said: "While rarely visibly angry with us, we feared his hidden disapproval - or worse still, disappointment. He hated wasted time and wasted talent - and that call to his study to go through our end of year school report could be terrifying!
"Many of our friends have written saying how as children, they were so scared of him but that as we all became adults, they realised how kind and generous he was beneath the tough exterior. We could not have wished for a fairer or more reliable father: we knew he could be depended upon no matter what."
Mr Bellak loved shooting and was an excellent shot although a harsh critic of himself and could be heard berating himself in no uncertain terms if he felt he had underperformed.
Maria added: "He had more or less stopped shooting last year as he could no longer satisfy his own standards but his refusal to stop going forwards remained and he couldn’t help himself in accepting a couple of invitations this year to which he was very much looking forward."
Of his death they said he was indomitable to the last and his was a life lived to the full and an example to us all.
"He met his end, as he had lived, head on - he was still thinking about the future and was issuing instructions to cancel an upcoming lunch party and the aforementioned shooting date. He was really more irritated than scared about leaving this world before he was ready.
"He will leave a big gap," she said.
