Humphrey Worthington-Smith

I think I was first introduced to Keith by way of a rumour that ‘there’s this IBM guy coming to Cape Town from Joburg. You should meet him; he’s your kind of guy’. I don’t know who said that or quite when, but, shortly thereafter I met the man himself, probably over a beer. One of the first encounters was at the Mattison house in Plumstead  where beer was certainly being consumed. We are talking about 1971 or 1972.

I was fascinated by this man. I remember at the time the Readers Digest used to have a regular item ‘My Most Unforgettable Character’ and that always made me think of Keith. I soon learned not to attach adjectives to him; there would be too many. Keith is Keith, the most unforgettable character I have ever met.

My first encounter, the first of years and years of encounters, occurred when the Southern Life Association came to see me to ask me to find a Data Processing Manager for them. This was to be a very desirable posting, and as a result I saw a great number of aspirant characters, including Keith. I turned down everybody in favour of Keith. All it needed was for Southern Life to recognize this man’s talents and they would have a winner. Sadly, they had a stereotyped view or what was desirable in such a person and missed a great opportunity.

Keith joined and attracted a team of excellent people, any one of whom would have gone to the gallows for him. This team, under Keith’s guidance, developed software for their new ICL computer, the likes of which had not really been heard of anywhere. The finest example was a data base driver, which they called “File Handler” long before databases became commonplace. But his superiors didn’t see the need for this.

Keith had a failing, which was to be his undoing. He would respond to all user requests with a cheery ‘Sure, piece of cake’. There was no protecting him from this, and the consequential mountain of unfulfilled requests. Keith and the Southern Life parted company and I hung my head in disappointment. I remember that Peter Lay wrote his doctorial thesis on the subject of techniques for scheduling and managing user requests. This was long after Keith left Southern.

While at the Southern Life, the Philharmonia Choir found itself in need of an accompanist. I knew Keith was a pretty good pianist and I put his name forward. This was to be the start of a long career for Keith in choral music. He was an enormous success with the Philharmonia. He then went on for a stint as choral trainer for the Symphony Choir, and also he formed his own informal choir called the Cape Contemporary Choir.

My two sons and I sang in this latter choir, which was most musically taxing. Keith’s choice of music was always very challenging. He also had a habit of bringing out on the night of a concert a new piece saying that he thought this very difficult piece would be rather fun. All the singers in this small choir were very competent choristers, which is always a pleasure.

Elsewhere in this blog, mention has been made of Keith’s 70^th birthday concert so I wont cover ground already competently covered. Let’s just say that it was one of the most exciting and exacting musical events ever to have been performed in Cape Town.

Keith and I have had contacts in the world of teaching. When he left Southern Life it was to join the University in a newly formed department of Computer Systems. I made various voluntary teaching contributions to this department and still count a number of people I met there among my friends. The best part was to participate in the guidance of postgraduate students in a part time honours degree. After the evening sessions we would repair to a small in house pub and the parties would go on well into the night where many darts were thrown and much beer consumed.

Later I had further teaching connections with Keith when he kindly gave us great support and participation in the starting up of WS&L, a computer systems training school.

Unhappily, I was never involved in Keith’s yachting exploits. I wish I had been, but keelboat yachting was simply not my game. My loss. It was also my loss that I did not watch cricket or play hockey with him. I have to be satisfied with the contact I have had with this man, quite definitely the most unforgettable character I have ever met.