Keith Chapman who died in November 2024 entered QEH in September 1955 at the age of 11. He was born in Corbridge Northumberland on the 26th of May 1944 to parents Edna and John Chapman. Soon after his birth he returned to Bristol living with his parents in the Horfield district of Bristol. He had two siblings, an elder brother Ian who was born before WW2 and a younger sister Brenda.

He started school at Upper Horfield Primary in September 1949. In 1955 he won a scholarship as a border at QEH and boarded at the school for seven years. Keith played rugby at school, although his favourite sport was soccer which he played in the yard at QEH at every opportunity. Because of his soccer skills he gained the nickname “Stan” after the famous 1950’s soccer star Sir Stanley Matthews.

At A level he took Pure Maths, Applied Maths and Physics. In 1962 he left QEH and studied for a degree in Electrical Engineering at Newcastle Upon Tyne University, gaining a City Senior Scholarship for free tuition and board. He also joined the General Electric Company (GEC) student apprenticeship scheme in electrical engineering, graduating in 1966.

After graduating he became a trainee computer programmer in the GEC Magnet Computing Bureau as the computing revolution in the UK was stating to take off. He later joined PA Management Consulting in 1970. A year later, because of the continuing recession in the UK, and under the “last in - first off principle”, he was made redundant and was again looking for work. He found a job with Allied Breweries as a system analyst. He enjoyed his time there, but in mid-1973, as his wife recalls him saying, he “was fed up at work one day”, and saw a newspaper advert for someone with systems analyst skills to help set up the Australia Government’s Medibank Health Care System. He applied for the position and was successful.

In February 1974, he moved to Canberra and soon met his future wife Robyn. Happy with his decision to relocate, he became an Australian citizen in 1975. He married Robyn in 1977 and their first son Michael was born in July 1978, and in 1980 a daughter Fiona. In 1980 Keith and Robyn moved from Canberra to Hobart, Tasmania, to take a job as a systems analyst with the Transport Commission. In 1982 he was appointed as Director of the State Government’s Telecommunications Management Division. He remained in that role for almost 25 years, retiring in 2006.

Throughout his life, Keith was a keen traveller and returned to visit friends and family in UK frequently, initially with Robyn and the children and later with Robyn or on his own. QEH was on the sightseeing agenda numerous times and in 2014 Keith was given a tour of the school. Keith died on 3 November 2024 of an aortic aneurysm, following earlier operation for bladder cancer. He leaves his sister Brenda, who lives in Melbourne, his wife, his two children and three grandchildren.

My friendship with Keith started when I joined QEH in 1955 as a boarder having gained a James Gollop scholarship from my home near the village of Netherbury in Dorset. Most boarders lived in Bristol and were allowed home on Sundays after attending the Sunday service at the Lord Mayor’s chapel on College Green. Because I could not go home on Sunday afternoons a number of my classmates and their parents, including Edna and John Chapman, would invite me to their homes for a delicious Sunday lunch and often afternoon TV, billiards or table tennis before returning to school at 6 pm. This kind act continued the school’s motto “Dum tempus habemus operemer bonum” which seems to me an entirely appropriate action all of us from QEH should continue to follow. I have many happy memories with Keith both in Bristol and when he came to Dorset for a summer holiday in 1960 and later at Old Portsmouth in 2010.

~ Written by OE Simon (Dorset) Read (1955 - 1963)