Alison's Words
It is Difficult to define my love for Steven in a
speech. He came into my life and showed me how
wonderful life could be, he totally captured my heart.
He was optimistic and buoyant, always lifting me up when
I was down, full of fun and uninhibited. I think
it was quite apt that we met at a ‘chuckles for charity’
show, as Steven had a wicked sense of humour….. always
telling jokes and was the life and soul of a party.
He was a successful businessman and an excellent
salesman, A client would come into his shop to buy a
screwdriver and he would end up selling them an
expensive powertool.
His girls, Jess and Rozie meant the world to him and
they enjoyed many hours on his boat, waterskiing and
having fun. Rozie shares his love of horses and
has that special connection with them that Steven had.
She had a civies day at school last term where they had
to dress up as their sporting hero…..her friends dressed
up as their soccer & rugby heros, but Rozie dressed up
as Steven, her horse riding hero. Jess is a Highland
dancer and Steven has been at every concert she has
participated in. He encouraged her to do her
dancing 4 times a week as he thought that would keep her
mind off boys and give her less time on mxit!
In February he was diagnosed with acute lymphocytic
leukaemia. It was the beginning of sharing
anti-depressants with him and some role reversals!
My chemoboy spent time in the kitchen teaching the girls
to cook and bake bread, and he sent me off to BPM to
help run the shop. There were many times where we felt
like we were on a rudderless boat, with lots of hospital
stays and many serious infections, but apart from a bit
of chemo brain, some tingling in his fingers and a sexy
bald head…..he fought his hardest to kick cancers ass.
During the past 6 weeks he channeled his energy into
a charity project that he was Passionate about. He
wanted to get big screen tv’s for all 8 wards in the
bonemarrow Transplant unit. After many hours of sitting
on the phone and sending emails, he had Enough money to
buy all 8 TV’s and money left over to get dvd players
for each room.
It is hard to say goodbye to someone who was such a
kind soul and who I simply couldn’t get enough of.
Thank goodness we did not travel this leukaemia journey
alone, we had angels amongst us……all our friends and
family, who held our hands, sent comforting messages and
shared their love.
Farewell my love, till we meet again.
Simon’s Words
It took Steven a long time but he eventually saw the
light. We were sitting at Marcus’s parents house in
Constantia when it dawned on Steven, with perhaps a
little bit of help from his friends, that what he was
really interested in was not horses but boats. We… he
took the decision that he was going to flog the horse,
the horse box and all the horse paraphernalia and buy a
hobiecat. We helped Steven to decide that the hobie
would be called, much to the ire of a number of horsey
folk present, Bye-Bye Horsey. Steven bought the boat and
it was a fine boat, with a fine name, but there was one
technical difficulty. It was only after the purchase was
made that Steven remembered that when you take a hobie
out you get wet, normally very wet, and normally in very
cold Atlantic Ocean water. The result was that the hobie
spent many many happy hours, sitting in his garden of 18
Blenheim Road Diepriver.
But then Steven bought a powerboat. A Malibu
waterski-ing boat with a 115 hp V4 engine. It was a mean
machine, when it ran. Steven unfortunately bought the
boat, the trailer and the engine all for the grand sum
of R17,000, which anyone who’s been around boats for a
while will tell you is not a good idea. As a result we
spent less time driving the boat around Langebaan lagoon
than we did driving the boat back to Paarden Eiland to
get the engine fixed. This was Ali’s first introduction
to Steven and boats and while boating might have been
right up Steven’s alley it certainly wasn’t up Ali’s
alley. Every morning when Steven opened the garage door
he saw his boat, the physical embodiment of the free
human spirit and a vivid reminder of wild and untamed
open spaces. When Ali opened the garage door, she never
saw a boat, all she saw was an ugly black monster whose
sole purpose was to swallow huge chunks of money every
couple of weeks.
There was only one thing for it and Steven made the
right decision, he sold the boat… and bought a bigger
and better boat. An Angler Countess with a brand new 115
Hp Mercury 4 stroke engine that cost more than all his
previous boats put together. Steven launched that boat
at almost every slipway within 100 miles of Cape Town,
freshwater and salt, legal and illegal, and we had
tremendous fun aboard it.
But during this time Ali’s involvement was not going
unnoticed.
When I was 10 years old the most popular shows on TV
were the cowboy shows, Bonanza, High Chaparal etc. Even
at 10 years of age I noticed that one got two types of
men in these shows. There were cowboys who rode into
town on horses, they spent most of their time in bars,
had two six guns strapped to his side and generally
didn’t take any crap from anyone. And then there were
what was called family men. A family man usually rode
into town on a wagon. He steered clear of the bars, had
no six guns on his side, and seemed to spend most of his
time doing maintenance on his house. In the “cowboy
years” we spent much of our free time doing as much
damage to 18 Blenheim Road Diepriver as possible.
Glowing path lights elevated a few feet off the ground
look just like soccer balls at 2am in the morning, just
ask Neil Kinrade. If you visit Steven and Alison’s house
now you will see that 3 Bramble Way is a warm, welcoming
and happy house. Quality maintenance never hurt anyone,
but the warmth of 3 Bramble Way comes from something
else. Steven had become a family man…
Don’t think for one moment this was against his will.
Ali will vouch for the fact that Steven never did
anything against his will. The remarkableness of this
story is that Steven became a family man with Ali, Jess,
Rosie, Bruce and Whiskers because he wanted to.
Now this wasn’t without its complications. I need not
tell you that life is not simple. So when we planned our
next adventure we were met with some unexpected
resistance. At the beginning of this year Steven and I
started planning a trip through Africa, from Cape Town
to Greece. The lifespan of this plan was captured on
email, so I’m able to give it to you verbatim…
…click
here to see email printout (read from bottom)…
It was shortly thereafter that Steven was diagnosed
with leukemia.
Steven’s capabilities were significant. Since BPM was
incorporated in 198?? Steven and Henry, together with
the BPM management team of Alison, Anne, Graeme, Glenda
and Edward have built BPM into a substantial business.
During one of my many periods of unemployment Steven and
I spent time studying the dynamics of the business
together and I visited every single powertool shop in
Cape Town. I can tell you that BPM is a highly
profitable business rivaled by perhaps only one other
powertool business in Cape Town, but what I want to tell
you about is the real BPM. The real BPM is about being
Steven and Henry being very good at what they do. It is
about Steven and Henry having a real interest in their
work and jobs that come in the door, its about getting
involved such that the satisfaction of the customer
becomes a source of personal satisfaction. What Steven
and Henry have built in their field is a centre of
technical excellence. This, together with a culture of
mutual respect amongst all at BPM, and one has the
opportunity to be the best at what you do. It is just
this which creates significance in one’s work, and it is
from significance that life begins to fill with meaning.
Some of the most wealthy and powerful organizations in
the world are unable to create (or buy) what Steven and
Henry has created in BPM.
I mentioned that Steven’s capabilities were
significant and this included his ability to talk a lot
of bull. One Friday evening, during the “cowboy years”,
Steven and I had been out late and returned home quite
tired. We were skipping TV channels and settled briefly
on a CNN documentary about Aid volunteers in the Middle
East. CNN was interviewing an American female Aid worker
who was assisting victims of a terrorist attack. I
mentioned to Creswell that the Aid worker wasn’t too bad
and if I was in Beirut I would like to take her rowing
in the park, which for us was standard conversation at
2am on a Saturday morning. Steven blurted out something
along the lines of “we’re not in that league boet” and
disappeared off to the kitchen to get himself another
beer mug of Cape Velvet cream.
Steven was one of the most authentic, real and humble
persons I have ever met in my entire life. I know for a
fact that he was talking a lot of bull that night
because it was only shortly thereafter that he met and
married Alison.
Steven was a hands-on and practical person but for
someone without academic training he wasn’t averse to
academic discussions. Provided his arm was charged with
a large glass, one could easily hit Steven with “where
do you stand on psychic reality?” Where many people
would immediately start talking about domestic servants,
Steven would produce a bemused smile and say “I’m
listening…” I think if we were ever sober long enough to
discuss psychic reality, or if the Multichoice condensed
Carl Jung’s writings into a 3 part mini-series televised
on the Action channel, psychic reality would have
resonated with Steven.
Carl Jung is one of the most respected thinkers the
world has ever produced. The questions he discusses at
2am is what is the source of our enthusiasms,
inspirations, and our heightened feeling for life? Why
do people write poetry? Why is it that, as we stand
here, we’re unable to control our tears even though we’d
prefer not to cry? Jung concluded that it is our human
spirit. Now Steven and I were also very familiar with
the spirit at 2am in the morning, although this tended
to be the alcoholic spirit.
Cres would have granted me 2 minutes of ramblings
before returning us to more pressing matters, such as
the relative merits of the Evinrude E-Tec versus the
Yamaha 4 stroke, so I have to talk quickly…
In mankind’s quest to understand the world we’ve
broken our experiences into two discrete parts, material
and spiritual. Psychic reality gives credence to both
our experiences. With time western culture will move
away from our preoccupation with our material world and
return to acknowledge all our experiences, in their
original and full oneness.
Did I see the human spirit in Steven? I saw a 21 year
old boy who had a relationship with his horse Ona that
was so strong the two of them were able to steal away a
trophy from the finest adult riders in the land. I saw a
man who would wait for the worst weather before
launching his boat, so that we could head out into the
storm, feel the slap of the sea, and the wind and the
salt in our faces.
Steven’s life was full of spirit. It is this same
spirit which, after his body has passed away, lives on.
Or to say this in Steven’s words… “let the
force be with you!”
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