Graham Lashbrooke

There are many, many abiding memories concerning Keith, but a great one that stands out is when Humphrey and I employed him to help us start our Systems Analysis courses at WS&L Training.

Whilst there is nothing to say about the undoubted superb quality of the material he put together and the aplomb with which he delivered it, the stress that I had to go through as every course started will always be with me. Every quarter I would start with 20 hopefuls and carry out the course introduction after which I was to hand over to Keith. The problem was that Keith would always arrive at the absolutely last minute, right after I had padded out the introduction to the point of total student stupefaction.

Then in he would march with no apology armed with a huge pile of transparencies that he would sort during his lecture leaving out great swathes and adding many diagrams on the whiteboard. Whilst this may sound like a lecturing disaster, for Keith it was the way things were done and the material he delivered was well received by enthralled students.

Around about lunchtime on the first day I would start to relax in the knowledge that all would go well and that the students would finally go away from the course knowing that a most knowledgeable and fluent man had improved their knowledge.

Thanks Keith, I might have aged 10 years every course you gave but you helped to make WS&L Training the success it was.

  

Kathy Jay

MATTIE BABY!

In the  B. Com (Hons) class of 92-93 we all had nicknames, invented and bestowed during the first of our part-time study year under your guidance. This was yours.

And oh my golly what fun we had, and how much we learned! The harder we played, the harder we learned. Remember how dear Caz used to get pissed off with us because we used to drink everything in the bar fridge every Thursday? One day she tilted the fridge to pack it so full that when we opened the door, all the beers tumbled out all over the floor. We drank everything that night too and I think it took some nifty negotiation from your side to convince her not to boycott us altogether :-/ 

Later this year we will celebrate 21 years since our graduation – all 18 of us are still in contact – albeit all over the globe - a tribute to the bond we built in the awesome 18 months we spent with you.

You lived many lives besides the academic and party ones you spent with us – your music and work with the disabled spring to mind in particular – but most of all, your huge zeal and appetite for LIFE and of course, computer code too! We remember (and often talk about) the class party we had at your home, the fancy alumni dinners with you in your bowtie and your never-ending supply of humour that spurred us on even through lectures about those new-fangled things called “wans and lans”, “routers and busses” and even that whacky thing called “the internet”. My biggest debate was whether to complete my TR using Ghostwriter or use the new-fangled package that required me to learn how to use a mouse!! Thanks for convincing me to get with programme, master the mouse and start my career in Change Management 

You can be proud of the class you created in ‘92 – ‘93.

So here’s to you ... Mattie Baby!

PS! I have (finally) forgiven you for docking 5% off my essay ‘cause it wasn’t in that stupid submission box by midnight on D-Day. I got the message that 2am just doesn’t cut it when midnight is the deadline! 

Terry Bailey

I well remember Keith from the 70’s at IBM and appreciated his positive and sunny attitude to everything. He showed many skills, not least as a musician. Unfortunately our paths haven’t crossed since then but am very pleased to include him amongst the memorable people I have known.

Len Worthington-Smith

Keith Mattison – Influencing my life

For me, Keith has been one of those people ever present in my life. He is a person who I could as likely bump into in the Long room at Newlands enjoying cricket, the City Hall at a concert or Forries or Perseverance Tavern with his eyes twinkling over the rim of a beer.

My most common association with Keith is through music, and goes back to the late ‘70s. At the time I was fortunate enough to be given opportunities to sing as a treble soloist and worked with Keith quite a bit, often with the Philharmonia Choir. Around this time I was considering starting to play the horn and innocently asked Keith why it was considered difficult. He immediately went into the complexities of the instrument with me, explaining about the closeness of the harmonics and the vagaries of its pitch and range. If I’d been a bit less impulsive myself, I’d have taken his advice and left the thing well alone! What this illustrated though is Keith’s keen interest in almost anything. Years later and freshly off an engineering degree we were discussing something about fluids and the motion of hulls through water and some of the mathematical relationships. “Ah, that’s one of those bad formulae isn’t it?” he remarked, unconvincingly trying to appear uncertain. I realized right then to tread with great care as Keith had spotted an empirical formula, one derived through being fitted to collected data rather than theoretically. I was stunned at where his logic could take him outside of his own field and at his constantly enquiring mind.

Apart from his astonishing intellect, diversity of interest and of course musical brilliance, Keith is unfailingly generous. On a few occasions I have had to ask Keith to help me out. Invariably some musically undiscerning friend will ask one to help at a wedding. One gets there to find a charming location but no consideration given to where musicians are to sit or what they might play. Along would come Keith with a keyboard in his boot, a collection of possibilities and a willingness to play anything in any key. He gives of his time generously and unhesitatingly always.

On one occasion our long serving maid announced that her church choir were to take part in a national competition and they needed help as the prescribed work was proving challenging. Keith of course agreed immediately to take part. A 30 odd strong choir (only about three magnificent men) met with my father, Humphrey and Keith in our lounge with parts to a chorus from Mendlessohn’s Elijah “Then did Elijah the prophet break forth”. They were to perform unaccompanied. The parts were in tonic sol fa (the do- re- me system) notation and extremely difficult to read. Keith reveled in unraveling the code and training the choir, dividing the sections with my dad and helping them to pick out notes and entries within their method of pitching. To all our delight, the choir went on to win and the trophies were brought back to Rondebosch from Nyanga in an emotional procession.

Choirs are a big association with Keith for me. He worked with both the Symphony choir and the Philharmonia. He put together an ad-hoc group called “Cape Contemporary Choir” which he called “C-cubed”, ever the scientist. My brother Rob, dad and I were fortunate to take part and Keith always chose interesting and challenging repertoire. We performed Rutter and Britten and of course, always something of his beloved Bernstein. Nothing was beyond Keith in terms of difficulty with his only frustration being the furrowed brows and doubts shown by the choristers. His belief was absolute and although we looked for the edge, we never fell off it.

His 70^th birthday concert will be for me a cherished memory. He played the Shostakovich 2^nd piano Concerto, a Claude Bolling Jazz Trio suite, the final movement of the Saint Saens Organ symphony and conducted a chamber choir in Bernstein’s Chichester Psalms. What a night, what an achievement and what a privilege for me to have shared a stage singing and then playing (the despised horn) in a top orchestra with Keith as soloist and Bernhard Gueller conducting. Bill Holland conducted the Bolling. Who else could bring that together ?

Back to my early recollections and the Philharmonia. Keith was landed with the task of preparing the choir for Bernstein’s Chichester Psalms. Within this work are complex passages in contrasting times. Here the genius for which I will always remember Keith was displayed and that is his rhythm. My abiding memory is Keith jamming on the piano in 7 beats in a bar with a choir of (generously) middle aged amateurs weaving to his beat while he demonstrated the concept. In the same work the treble soloist sings a tricky ascending progression which settles down to establish the key for the choir to enter unaccompanied. This is fraught with potential disaster with an inexperienced soloist and amateur choir. Keith knew exactly how to place in our minds what had to be done and show us the confidence of a man with no limits.

I asked Keith back then how to approach triplets, which is a series of three notes played or sung in the time normally allowed for two. I always fond myself cramming them together clumsily. “Ah, the secret is never to rush them. Take your time. See them as three notes in the time of four shorter ones.” It was vintage Keith and I’ve luxuriated in triplets since. Keith Mattison, always laid back with time to spare and time to give.

With thanks and affection

Len Worthington-Smith

Paul Sulcas

My earliest memory of Keith was meeting him through mutual friends, beer in hand, and in party mode. I had never met a Canadian accountant before. Through a combination of events, Keith landed up working full time in the Department of Accounting, at UCT, where he worked with under graduate and post graduate students. Overall he made a postive contribution and we shared many good times. His relationship with UCT continued for a number of years and he undertook many professional consultancy assignments.

 

Besides his devotion to his family, one of his great loves was sailing: he crewed often. He also was a lover of cricket and countless hours were spent with colleagues at Newlands!

 

Aviva and I were greatly impressed with his musical prowess - he was brilliant on the piano and gave much pleasure to many. He and Aviva had the opportunity to collaborate on several musical projects, including Broadway Magic and City Hall Concerts. 

 

A multi skilled,  all rounder,  we salute Keith's joie de vivre.

 

Warmest wishes

Paul and Aviva Sulcas

Derek Smith

Keith and I first met in the 80’s when I working at Shell in Cape Town. As a consultant, he was trying to help us make a leading-edge daily software system behave. We failed. Between Peter Lay, ProfK and Keith, I was persuaded to become a mid-life academic and join them in the Dept of Accounting at UCT. One of the best decisions in my career. I remember, Keith, you were then the reluctant Section Head but you were so welcoming. Thank you.

Keith and I were academic colleagues for many years during which time we got involved in many interesting university activities including part-time Deputy Directors of IT. Keith handled the library systems using a mean RFP to ensure supplier compliance when they messed up (it cost them dearly when they had to upgrade for free). Keith’s love of both teaching and programming made him a huge success with the student body, even when we were still trying to run Cobol on early Taiwanese PCs. Keith, do you remember that Apple Lisa demo using WIMP which we had never seen before? What progress since then!

With your vast knowledge, breadth and depth, you made a huge success of the part-time post-graduate programmes. Those evenings often culminated in a few lemonades and a game or 2 of darts. The annual staff cricket match against the postgrads at SFW was often dis-organised by Keith. A Canadian wickie was something to behold. I do remember you scoring a lot of runs in small units, though. You were also pretty good at hockey goalie too and whilst representing WP oldies, came to work one day with a black eye, bent teeth and a broken nose – forgot to wear a helmet …in goal…..K e i t h!

Liz and I were fortunate to buy and share an idyllic cottage in Rooi Els with Keith and Ruth over many years. Keith, the practical one, always seemed to find difficult maintenance easy and I am sure those alternations are still there today, especially the braai light. We miss those days.

When Keith retired from UCT, he left a massive hole. Through our connection at FTI, we have met occasionally, and it remains clear to me that you continue to maintain a long-term habit of doing 7 divergent things at once where a mere mortal would struggle with 2.

Keith, you were always a JIT player, (which made me nervous), but you delivered a class act for which I have HUGE admiration. 

Doc Caldwell

KEITH MATTISON

1968 Dec 31. New Year’s Eve 1968 is a bittersweet memory. My father had died unexpectedly In November, so the “festive season” was a tough number for my mother, my sister and me. The show must go on, and the party was at the Vaughans’ huge Crown Mines home, with lots of old family friends, and I’d been organised a blind date. To my delight, Ross and Tish James were unexpected guests: I’d barely seen Ross since he was senior to me at school. They had in tow Keith and Ruth Mattison, round-the-world travellers from Canada, who’d arrived in South Africa that very day. I was impressed with Keith’s prowess at the piano, and so was my Mom, who bravely gave her rare O Boereplaas party-piece to see the old year out. I was even more impressed with his child-bride, Ruth, to the neglect but surely not regret of my date.

Next day there was tennis and swimming at the Tompkins, and the Mattisons were by now part of the family. Keith was introduced to cricket in style at a Wanderers test match within a couple of days, where the picnic hamper came out and Granny Vaughan cracked the “shampers”. To this day he is the only Canadian in history (apart from those in BC who can’t translate Canada c'est pas un pays: c'est l'hiver!) who understands the ethos of five-day cricket. Despite his passion for the game from then on, he also remains the worst cricketer I have ever known.

1969: Keith and Ruth moved into a flat on Florida Lake, there were picnics at Little Falls, and Keith played the squash-box at parties at my mother’s flat in Florida Hills.

July 20: Watched the moonwalk on the radio, over Woodstock made no fuss, did Simon bridge those troubled waters, Garfunkel to do with us: lyrics from a song for my class of ’69 reunion 25 years later. Keith and I sat up late in their flat on a pre-SATV winter’s night, gazed at the moon, and at long-last heard Neil Armstrong’s immortal crackly words. We avoided dehydration.

Sept 27: Keith was the organist at my sister Pat’s wedding to John Lees in Johannesburg: recessional How do you solve a problem like Maria? Pat and John moved into the same block of flats on the lake, as did Melly & John von Klemperer. There was an epidemic of pregnancies in the precinct, puzzling to me as a medical student: hadn’t they heard of vaccinations?

1970 March 9. Birth of Kevin Mattison: I was honoured to become a godfather for the first time. 1971 March 15: Patrick Lees born, making me an uncle, and godfather again.  A little von Klemperer appeared too. The christenings were serious affairs on the lakeside, with the male adults sustaining serious internal baptisms, and then voluntary immersions in the lake, resulting in a near-drowning on one of these occasions.

1971 July-ish: By now Keith and Ruth and Kev had moved to Cape Town, but somehow managed to travel to Kob Inn, our favourite Transkei holiday resort. Keith had to head for work in Johannesburg, so Ruth and tiny Kevin & I travelled back to Cape Town in my Anglia, in one plenty-hours hit, stopping for arbitrary reasons in Grahamstown and The Crags. Ruth kept us both awake, negotiating Sir Lowry’s Pass, teaching me the rudiments of bridge, which somehow did not penetrate into the memory bank. Next morning an excited Voetsak, the Mattison faithful brak, gashed his side on the bumper of the Triumph Spitfire, so it was Sunday with the vet.

Cape Town 73-77: I moved back to Cape Town, and lived in Tokai near the Mattison’s Moosejaw and saw them often. Keith and Ruth provided lots of “ideal matches” for an eager bachelor, but none found me the least suitable. Then I joined the Philharmonic Choir, where Keith was accompanist and committee member. One became aware of being ogled by a soprano with long blonde hair (she insists it was vice versa but with my squint it could have been an alto further along the row). I did take the precaution of asking Keith to divulge her phone number, knowing that Patricia Preston was also a committee member. He told me not to bother as she already had a boyfriend, but gave me the number anyway. The boyfriendproved an obstacle for a while, but Pat and I are coming up for our 38^th wedding anniversary. Thanks again for that inside information, Mr Mattison sir.

The Blue Route, now the M3 Highway, opened at about this time, enabling one to get to Tokai much more quickly, but also providing hidey-holes for traffic cops. Keith sped into a trap in the racing-green Triumph Spitfire one day, decided that Formula 1 flamboyance was the better part of discretion and put foot to floorboard. I gather they finally caught up with Keith in the lanes of Tokai, where he was embracing an unsuspecting housewife, whispering that she should tell the cops that she was about to deliver their baby. Something like that anyway.

1977 and beyond. We left Cape Town and saw the Mattisons only sporadically, on return trips, whilst remaining good friends. Visits to the Members’ Stand at Newlands with Keith were lively occasions. I had succumbed to a midlife crisis of clowning and crooning on stage, with frequent relapses, and against his better judgment Keith would be my keyboard accompanist for Western Cape performances, and also on the Fringe at the Grahamstown Festival. He somehow forgave my not infrequent five or three to a four-beat bar. Only once did I upstage him as to showbiz decorum when insisting that we played to an audience of three in Knysna, including the bouncer and the critic from the Argus. His inclination (and theirs) would have been the wiser one. I’ll never forget Keith inserting a snatch of O Canada into a World Cup rugby sketch, and standing to attention whilst he played it. Post-performance refreshments at the Mount Nelson, Cathcart Arms etc. were great fun.

1998 December 12: My niece Kate Lees’s wedding-day, St Stithians School chapel, Johannesburg. Keith was to play the organ as he had done at her parents’ wedding almost three decades earlier. I fetched him from the airport the previous afternoon, and as we approached the school for a rehearsal the most almighty Highveld thunder-storm hit. There was water above ankle-deep by the time we parked near the chapel, which pretty soon was also flooded, with rainwater pouring into the organ-pit. We called for reinforcements, but the headmaster and other personnel were far more concerned about matric exam papers becoming waterlogged, so it was Keith and I who did most of the bailing, squeegee-ing and mopping-up, Keith’s yachtsmanship coming to the fore. Somehow the electrics survived the semi-immersion, and despite sections of the organ not functioning, the Widor Toccata sounded magnificent next day, sun shining brightly and aisle-carpeting only slightly damp.

2012-14: Despite the onset of his illness, Keith stepped up to the plate as guest- accompanist when I performed at Kalk Bay Theatre in 2012, and remarkably did a full run of Guys & Dolls, so appropriate to his Salvation Army roots, towards the end of last year. I was privileged to attend the first night as Keith and Ruth’s guest. Keith was on fine form, returning to the stage, with interest, a newspaper that had been casually tossed into the orchestra pit.

Pat and I saw Keith and Ruth at home in March, for tea and then a beer. Keith knew that it was time for an oxygen machine: but he wasn’t complaining. Harry was thrilled with all his grandchildren, Ruth’s great support, and his ability to captain his yacht with crews willing to do the sailing, even though the Rio Race had required the decision to head for home at an early stage, fortunately in the event.

This is a long way of saying what a huge influence Keith and Ruth Mattison have had on my life, and Pat’s. What fun we’ve had, Keith: nary a dull moment, that’s for sure. The slow movements of Beethoven’s Pathetique Sonata and of Shostakovich’s 2^nd Piano Concerto will always remind me of you and your sensitive playing. I salute you, brave bearded Canadian friend and generous warrior, who, with Ruth, has embraced South Africa so thoroughly since your arrival more than 45 years ago.

Much love, ATB

Doc Caldwell, Hilton, KZN