My husband, Geoffrey Keating, who has died aged 88, was a director of music at various schools, including Cheadle Hulme in Cheshire and Millfield in Somerset.
His arrangements of songs for his various schools, along with many of his own compositions, were often picked up and rearranged by others.
Geoff had established his reputation as an arranger/composer in the early days of his career during the mid-1960s, when as assistant director of music at Abingdon school in Oxfordshire he joined up with three colleagues to establish the Master Singers.
Recording a series of songs that gained national popularity by setting unlikely texts – such as wrestling regulations and extracts from weather forecasts – to psalm chants, their version of The Highway Code reached No 22 in the UK charts in 1966 and their Weather Forecast song got to No 45 the same year. Later Cliff Richard asked Geoffrey to arrange some Christmas carols for him, while he also did some arrangements for the King’s Singers.
Geoff was born in Middlesbrough to Alfred, a policeman, and Grace (nee Taylor), who was in service at a country house. His family was non-musical, but by the age of eight he was showing promise with his singing, and his parents paid for him to have piano lessons, which led him at 13 to begin playing the organ for early services at the local church.
After leaving Acklam Hall grammar school he secured a place to study music at Queen’s College, Oxford, but first had to do two years national service with the army at Catterick camp in North Yorkshire. I was a fellow student at Oxford, and we met in the music faculty on the first day of our first terms, after which we were married in 1961.
After Geoff’s first job at Abingdon school he became musical director at Clayesmore school in Dorset, then Cheadle Hulme and finally Millfield. He was at Millfield for 17 years until dizziness problems (later successfully addressed) forced him to retire early at 50. Later we moved to Gatehouse of Fleet in Kirkcudbrightshire, and there set up the Solway Sinfonia, an orchestra for amateur and ex-professional players from all round the Solway Firth, which will be celebrating its 30th birthday next year.
Outside music, one of Geoffrey’s main interests was sailing. Over his life he had a variety of boats – 14 in all – and taught a number of people to sail, including our son, Graham, who got a sailing blue at Oxford and spent six years sailing round the world.
Geoff is survived by me and by our children, Hilary and Graham.
