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| Brian Bassett, showing the adrenaline-smile of a man who has just pushed the needle all the way to the right... and then held it there. |
FORMER Pietermaritzburg city planner Brian
Bassett died on Tuesday night after a long battle with leukaemia.
He was 71. Brian is survived by his wife Lin and
their daughter Catherine, who flew in from Belgium to support her mother at her
father’s sick bed.
The death of this genial giant leaves a big hole
on the many organisations in which he still served after retiring from the
Msunduzi Municipality.
His qualifications from institutions in South
Africa and Britain — where he worked and studied with his wife and where their
daughter was born in the 1970s — almost filled his business card; and his
achievements as community developer, historic building conservation expert, editor, author, art collector and motoring enthusiast would will this newspaper.
achievements as community developer, historic building conservation expert, editor, author, art collector and motoring enthusiast would will this newspaper.
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| Brian Bassett in studio. |
Suffice to say at the Msunduzi council he is best remembered for laying the foundation to conserve Maritzburg’s old buildings, using the expertise gained from serving on the National Monuments’ Council. In this role he co-compiled and edited The Buildings of Pietermaritzburg as conservation consultant, which to his recent delight is now a very rare and pricey volume cited in research.
Older citizens will, however, recall how this
pragmatic city planner made our headlines by mooting in an informal interview to
The Witness that the city should
follow Durban’s example to consider a red light district in order to create a
safer environment for prostitutes.
Ever the philanthropist with a mission to
uplift individuals, Brian ironically did his masters in anthropology on the
problems of prostitution in urban areas while a rather shy and gangly young
student in the University of the Western Cape in the 1960s.
In the early 1980s in Durban, Brian went on to
establish the Built Environment Support Group to enable poor communities to
access land, basic services, housing and administrative justice and continued to
serve on this group as deputy chairperson after his retirement. He also
continued to give unstintingly of his administrative expertise as board member
of several charity organisations, from the Msunduzi Hospice to the Zimele
Non-Profit Organisation to the Rotarians, where he worked as hard at selling egg
and bacon rolls as he did to preside over meetings.
He was constantly adding to his encyclopedic
knowledge of industrial design trends and driving with him through any part of
any city was always an education, be it on architectural eras, or the best types
of grass to plant on the banks of rivers to stem floods to protect vegetable
gardens.
A rally racer in his youth and lover of fast
cars all his life, this bon vivant bought an old Ford Mustang and drove the
entire Route 66 in the U.S. and as student toured the Ibiza coastline in Spain
decades before these adventures became standard items on bucket lists.
His last hobby was to write as the new car
correspondent for Witness Wheels and
host the Nqola show on the local radio station Capital 104 fm.
As a driver he taught all us whippersnappers at
The Witness how to milk the most out
of life each day, and the Wheels
team fondly remembers how he would took a young man’s delight in pushing
his BMW Z4 as fast as he dared around the hairpins of the Hesketh Race Track,
despite having 70+ full summers under his belt.
He was my mentor for far too few years, and all I can now say is Hambe kahle,
baba. While you did not believe in any one god, you always told me of your healthy respect for all of them, if only for religion's role in stabilizing communities. I look forward to cross thoughts again when you drop in from the big beyond.
