I do remember hearing a story about him, perhaps apocryphal. Apparently a grad student had been working on a paper and wanted to get Barrow's thoughts on it. With a great deal of trepidation, the student presented the draft to Barrow and Barrow said he'd take a look. A few days later Barrow returned the paper to the grad student with no changes, except for adding "John D. Barrow" to the author list. :)