It is a privilege that I have been invited to write an obituary to my longstanding friend Brian Stewart, who passed away at the age of seventy nine after a short but severe illness borne with great fortitude. This was soon after his birthday on 24 February 2017. His passing was an extremely sad event for his family and his many friends and of course for me. I feel a deep senseof loss now that he is no longer with us.
I was fortunate to have known Brian since the age of four when we attended his grandmother’s kindergarten in Bourke Street, Sunnyside. This was during the war years. If my memory serves me, our time in kindergarten was from about 1942 to 1945. After this we were enrolled in Sunnyside Primary School which was zoned as a feeder school for Pretoria Boys High. Consequently, both Brian and I began our memorable high school years at Boys High in 1951. Little did we know how privileged we were to be a part of this remarkableeducational institution.
At Boys High, Brian was quite simply, a very clever pupil. However, he never traded on this gift. He was in fact, “one of the boys”. Always game for adventure and fun with an aptitude for risk taking which I suspect may have cost him his prefect’s badge. He was also a frequenter of “smoker’s koppie” until he became a cadet corps NCO, tasked with the occasional responsibility of raiding the smoking emporiums on the hill to flush outthe smokers. I’m sure this must have irked him somewhat.
I also vividly recall us sitting on our bikes at home-time at the now non-existent corner of Lynnwood Road and Roper Street, together with Francois Theron, Hendrik Davel and Gerrit Bon, checking out the Girls High and St Mary’s girls on their bikes and debating their many merits tucked away in drab gymslips.That’s about as far as we got though!
Brian loved sport and as I recall participated in cricket, rugby and athletics. He was a particularly fast 100 yard sprinter. He and his good friend Joe Leps, left me standing when we had our first athletics trials in Form One. I was considered to be an ace sprinter in primary school, but that all changed when the pond became bigger. This is a lesson that Boys High has taught manya self-confident “new- pot”.
After completing matric Brian and I went our separate ways. He had chosen a career in accounting and after completing his articles in Johannesburg, he qualified as a Chartered Accountant and moved to Pretoria. Brian started out with the attorney’s firm George Mackenzie and Co. and ended up with KPMG where he became a valued partner in the firm. He married his first and only true love, Thelma on the 1st of April 1961 and from this union there were four much-loved children, Roderick and Jonathan, Catherine and Elizabeth. No prizes for guessing what schools they went to! All of them have done well in their respective careers and were their parent’s pride and joy.
After matric I elected to go the Naval Gymnasium at Saldanha for a year and then chose a naval career as my vocation in life. Thirty years later, I was appointed to Naval Headquarters in Pretoria and it was only then that Brian and I were able to pick up the reins of our friendship once again. I had two daughters at Girls High at the time and Brian’s one daughter wasteaching there.
What a remarkable friendship it has turned out to be. I could not have wished for a better friend than Brian. His sterling qualities became even more apparentas I grew to know him better in adult life.
Brian loved Boys High with a passion and was one of the most loyal and forthright Old Boys I have ever met. Honesty and integrity, as well as a great sense of humour, were qualities that shone through and must have endeared him to many who were to make his acquaintance throughout his life. He was one of the most principled people that I have known, with no grey areas in his persona.And yet, he remained humble and unassuming – unless goaded!
When the new headmaster, Bill Schroder and his wife Cherry, arrived at the School in about 1989, Brian as I recall, was serving as a school board member. He and Bill became great friends over time. When Bill embarked on his ambitious and meritorious fundraising effort to build a new school hall, together with expanded educational facilities, he called upon Brian to be the fundraiser for our matric year of 1955. Brian accepted the challenge without hesitation and then roped me in to help. Needless to say that under Brian’s competent leadership we were one of the first years to reach our target. A glutton for punishment, Brian also played a leading role in our forty, fifty and sixty years-on reunions. That was my friend Brian with his sleeves rolledup!
In closing I have to mention that Brian was a fund of information on the whereabouts of Old Boys and the School’s history. In this regard his memory was quite remarkable. I carry a mental picture with me of seeing Brian at the Johannesburg Old Boys monthly lunches at the “Thundergun” Steak House in Northcliffe, wedged between a brace of beefy Old Boys of some bygone era, just enjoying being “one of the boys” once again, wrappedin a cloak of School fellowship. He could not have been happier.
I will miss Brian immensely, as will all who knew him as I did.
“Vale Brian”
– Trevor Beddy (1955)