Tribute to Major Keith Cattran, 1944 – 2023

Keith passed away peacefully on the 18th of October with his family by his side. Much loved husband to Linda, father to Carly, Alex, Greg and Robert, and grandfather to Charlie, Freddie, Olivia, Ellie, Jess, Ollie and Kaja.

Keith was elected as a Wokingham Town Councillor in the Evendons West Ward, in 1979, and was a member on both Amenities and Finance committees here. He went on to serve as Mayor at the Town Council from May 1985 to May 1986.

Many might also remember Keith as the Mayor who was in post when Wokingham Town Council held a big celebration to mark the centenary of the town council from 1885 to 1985.

Keith hailed from Penzance in Cornwall where he lived with his parents and sister. He attended Penzance Boys’ Grammar School from 1956 to 1958 and, in the latter year the Cattran family moved to Plympton, Devon. Five years later Keith left home and continued his education at Oxford Institute of Education, Culham College, from 1963 to 1966 for professional teaching training.

He then moved to Wokingham in September 1966 where he took up a post at St. Crispin’s School teaching English, History, Geography and Civics. He met Ann Valerie, a native of Southampton, who was teaching at Embrook Junior School. They married in 1968 and had two boys, Robert Ashley and Gregory Batten.

Later that year the Cattran family moved to Cornwall where Keith taught at Tolgus Secondary School and was shortly promoted to the post of Head of Year. He was later appointed Head of the Social Science Department. The school became comprehensive in 1971 and he was appointed Head of Resources. Meanwhile, from 1971 to 1974, he had resumed his studies and obtained a Bachelor of Arts degree at the Open University.

He and Ann were divorced in 1974 and he left Cornwall to take up a position in 1977 at Charters Comprehensive School at Ascot as Head of House. In February of the following year he settled in Wokingham. He was the first person to buy a house on the new Woosehill estate.

In 1982 Keith married Linda Pauline Griffiths, née Whiter, a native of Windsor, who was serving as a councillor in Wokingham Town Council. She had two children, Carly and Alex by her previous marriage.

At the beginning of his Mayoral year of office in 1985, the International Year of Youth, Keith announced that he would follow a ‘youth theme’. Remembering that his mother had died from kidney failure, and that a close friend’s mother was receiving dialysis at a hospital in Surrey, he spearheaded a campaign to raise money for the purchase of a kidney dialysis machine for the benefit of the people of Wokingham. The initial target was to raise £7,200 for the purchase of a machine and to train the staff of the Royal Berkshire Hospital in Reading in its use.

Some of the money raised came from a celebrity cricket match with the Lord’s Taverners, sponsored by Heron Homes, which took place on Wokingham’s old cricket ground. Keith’s team, the Wokingham Dialysis XI, played against famous names including David Frost and Nicholas Parsons. The sum raised was over £5,000.

By the end of his year of office the sum collected by the appeal stood at an unbelievable £21,240. And so in May 1987, in addition to providing a dialysis machine for the Royal Berkshire Hospital, he opened a special renal unit at Dellwood Hospital in Reading complete with a kidney dialysis machine paid for by the people of Wokingham.

In October 1985 Wokingham Town Council celebrated the centenary of the town council. The day began with the arrival at the Town Hall of the Lord Lieutenant. of Berkshire, the Hon. Gordon Palmer, in a horse-drawn carriage. The parade was led by the Staff Band of the R.E.M.E. Upon his arrival at the Town Hall the Lord Lieutenant was given a trumpet fanfare.

Also present were the Deputy-Mayor of Erfstadt, Herr Adolf Kappes, his Town Clerk, Herr Johannes Mrasek and Jacques Bedet, Deputy Mayor of Viry Chattillon. During the celebrations fifteen past town mayors were presented with commemorative brooches or pins. To mark the occasion a commemorative scroll was signed.

Go to Keiths Tribute Page Here

Our thoughts are with Keith’s family and friends.

Photo: Wokingham Town Council