Keith F Taylor – Fareham Music Festival
Born 1 July 1947 – Died 22 May 2020 (age 72 and 10 months)
Keith studied Computer Sciences at the London School of Economics, (LSE). In 1970 Sule was working on a summer placement job in the UK in connection with her Turkish university economics degree, and was invited to a party by friends in London where she was waylaid by a loud, very drunk American. In his usual gallant way, Keith rescued her from this unwanted attention and then invited her out to Windsor Castle the next day. He suggested she transfer from her university in Turkey to finish her degree at LSE which she subsequently did. They married in 1971, becoming parents to Yasmin a year later and Errol in 1978.
Keith worked at IBM and was a computer pioneer. As part of that job he worked in several locations in the USA and also in Zambia for 3 years. He took early retirement from IBM in 2002 at the age of 55 and started the construction of a model railway in his garden as a hobby, which delighted the local children as well as his own grandchildren. He was also very interested in genealogy, compiling his and Sule’s family trees and thereby tracing both families back several generations.
Sule was the music secretary (piano) for Fareham Festival between 1991 and 2000, becoming Chairman in 2000. Keith had been a long-time supporter of Sule’s work at the Festival and so in the same year and in order to help her in her new role, he took over the behind the scenes management of the preparation and distribution of the syllabus, plus the management and programming of the Festival. In 2013 he was listed along with Sule as a Friend of Fareham Festival and from 2016 -2019 he was named as Webmaster.
Additionally Keith edited the Fareham Music Festival website and was instrumental in preparing the competition venue in readiness for the Festival each year. This included all the materials, certificates and remark sheets plus liaising with the Cup Secretary regarding the allocation of cups. An invaluable tool for the Cup Secretary has proved to be the book that Keith prepared which identified each cup and trophy the festival presented, recording a photograph and measurements of each cup.
At the festival Keith worked tirelessly with Sule and the team to ensure that the event ran without snags.
Keith was a loving husband, father and grandfather; always supporting his family and will be greatly missed by all his family and friends.