Keith Moodie

Our long-standing colleague, good friend and respected teacher, Keith Moodie, died on 29th December, 2022, barely a fortnight after celebrating his 91st birthday with a few friends at home in Rothbury. 

Keith was born in Walker in the East End of Newcastle. Despite some difficult times early in his life, particularly a lengthy spell in hospital at the age of 7 when he was lucky to survive a diphtheria infection, he was able to read fluently in advance of starting school. He benefited from a free place at the Royal Grammar School, starting in September 1942 and going through school a year young and consistently achieving top grades without any apparent effort. At the RGS he developed a love of languages and of music, learning to play the piano, violin and bassoon. To his great credit he became a member of the newly formed and highly competitive National Youth Orchestra.

The RGS was evacuated to Penrith between September 1939 and July 1944, the boys being billeted with local families. Keith was among the evacuees and it was here that his life-long love of the Lakes and hillwalking began.

On leaving school in March 1950, and after serving mandatory National Service for 18 months, Keith fulfilled his ambition to go to Cambridge University (Gonville and Caius) to study Modern Languages (French and German). He embraced Cambridge life - college dinners, music, punting, picnics by the Cam - and greatly enjoyed a term away in Heidelberg. Keith graduated in June 1954, and then completed his Dip.Ed at Newcastle University. His first post, in September 1955, was teaching modern languages at Rutherford Grammar School. He then moved to Dame Allan’s in 1962 as Head of Modern Languages, becoming Deputy Head Teacher in succession to Don Walker in 1978.

Keith met his wife-to-be, Doreen, at an RGS school dance when they were 17, marrying 14 years later and moving into Bolbec Road, Fenham, for the next 30 years, where Fiona and Alasdair were brought up.

At work, Keith enjoyed extra-curricular activities as much as teaching modern languages. Many former pupils have referred to hiking trips to the North West Highlands and Islands, the Lakes and the Alps. Cross country running, ornithology, the Duke of Edinburgh Award Scheme and music were further interests which he enthusiastically shared with his pupils throughout his teaching career. One early musical interaction took place at Rutherford, where a certain Brian Rankin showed interest in performing music and particularly jazz. Brian needed an instrument but could not afford to buy a new one, so Keith offered to sell him his banjo for £2/10s at a weekly rate of half a crown. The pupil just happened to be Hank Marvin, later of ‘The Shadows’.

At Dame Allan’s Keith’s support for music was constant and unstinting. In particular, as the choir - drawn from both schools and of which both Fiona and Alasdair were eventually members - continued to grow and develop, Keith and Doreen repeatedly welcomed all 80 of them into their house in Fenham after the annual round of carol singing in aid of various charities. All three storeys were filled to the brim and Keith was in his element.

Outside school Keith spent many hours in his beautiful garden and at the allotments on Fenham Hall Drive, the source of vast quantities of healthy produce. He ran French and German evening classes, marked A Level papers, attended Gaelic classes, was President of the Newcastle Society of Recorder Players and played in many local orchestras, where as an expert bassoonist he was very much of a ‘rare breed.’

In 1990, with his 1992 retirement on the horizon, Keith and Doreen moved to Anton’s Letch in Rothbury, a bungalow with a stunning view over Coquetdale to the Simonside Hills. They quickly established themselves in the friendly local community alongside amazing neighbours whose support became increasingly important and where they were able to welcome family and friends in abundance. It was an opportunity for maximising pleasurable activities - gardening, new musical initiatives such as playing the organ at All Saints, Rothbury, and learning the Northumbrian pipes, wild swimming before it became trendy, ornithology and holidays, both long and short-haul. His interest in languages never diminished; on the contrary in his retirement he attended Gaelic course holidays at the Gaelic College on Skye, went to Spain alone in his mid 80s where he lodged with a Spanish family as part of a ‘total immersion’ Spanish language programme, this continuing fascination with languages culminating in a truly memorable language, food and scenery extravaganza in the Italian Lakes with Fiona immediately before COVID.

Retirement was not all easy, however. Doreen’s protracted and sad illness with dementia brought out Keith’s endless patience and his caring nature over several long and increasingly difficult years. Thereafter things became easier and Keith maximised a few precious remaining years, fighting on through COVID restrictions and increasingly severe heart failure with the help of a dedicated team of carers and loyal neighbours, as well as the increasingly frequent presence of Fiona and Alasdair.

As news of Keith’s death spread amongst former colleagues and pupils, tributes and anecdotes began to pour in, some of them stemming from memories more than half a century old, others relating to unsung and much more recent acts of kindness and support towards former pupils and their offspring. The January 16th thanksgiving service at All Saints, Rothbury, conducted by Cecil Dick and David Carey, a Lay Reader at All Saints, was generously attended by a wide spectrum of friends, colleagues and Old Allanians. During the service both Fiona and Alasdair communicated in a vivid, heartfelt and often amusing way the defining and sometimes contrasting characteristics of Keith as a family man. Andrea Fairbairn, equally vividly and concisely, summed up Keith’s qualities as a colleague and teacher; amongst the adjectives and phrases which she had gleaned were ‘legendary,’ ‘the best teacher I had by a mile,’ ‘fair,’ ‘meticulous,’ ‘rigorous,’ ‘inspirational,’ ‘a man of integrity,’ ‘loyal,’ ‘reliable.’ The support which he gave to his colleagues during his period as Deputy Head, sometimes during difficult times, was another constant theme. Keith was in some ways a disciplinarian, being required to deal equably with issues which might now seem rather peripheral, such as length of hair and ties and width of trousers, but in contrast to that side of his professional life his A Level students, many of whom went on to study languages at University, saw the human side of his nature as summed up by Fiona: ‘Dad was good company; mischievous, cheeky, funny, kind, warm and thoughtful.’ He was a sun-loving ‘heliotrope,’ according to Fiona, who at the first opportunity and probably to the amused embarrassment of his children and grandchildren, would be out in the garden, scantily clad, with flip-down sunglasses, a glass of sherry in one hand, binoculars around his neck. ‘Cultivate thine eccentricity’ was his habitual response under those circumstances.

‘A long life, well lived’ was the summation offered by Fiona and Alasdair, and we can all say a grateful ‘Amen’ to that.

John Green

DABS 1967-1990