There is so much to say about Mattie, where do I begin? The following is the eulogy which was written for him and read at his funeral. It sums up his life perfectly – and also captures his wonderful personality.
When Matthew was born on 21st May 2001, he was the first and eagerly anticipated child of Amanda and Neil.
You will hear me refer to him in various ways today and you will also notice that, on the front of your order of service he is named Matthew, Mattie and Matt – Matthew being his given name, Matt – the name that friends used and Mattie as he was called by family.
There is however, a name that is not listed there and you may not have heard him called it before. You see, brothers Harry and Mattie had nick names for each other; for some reason Mattie always called Harry ‘Gareth’ and so Harry called Mattie ‘Doris’. Why, Doris is unclear – obviously a brother thing, but I shall stick to Matt and Mattie today.
Mattie was such a precious baby because fertility treatment was needed to get him. Of course, when he arrived there were the usual comparisons – some said that he looked like his mum, others thought he looked more like his dad but, as his personality developed there was definitely a lot of Amanda there.
He was always happy, as a little boy, very lively, always mischievous – you could never take your eye off him for a moment, because he would be up to something the second you weren’t looking.
Young Mattie was never one to be happy in his own company; he could never entertain himself, he always had to have others around him so Amanda would organise lots of play dates and sleep-overs with his friends. As he got older Matt’s need to be in company, have people around him, didn’t dwindle at all and there would often be large house parties, for all of his friends to come to, which were very popular and often talked about.
When he was one year old, the family moved to to Calne. Mattie’s first experience of any kind of school was Sunny Days Nursery and from there he went on to Fynamore Primary. This was where he met a lot of his first friends, friends who were to remain close for the rest of his life.
Although he was a bright boy, Matt was not exactly the model pupil during his primary years, as he was always messing about and getting up to some kind of mischief with his friends; antics which would, quite regularly, result in Amanda and Neil being called in to see his teacher or the Head. This was to continue into Secondary school too – he just couldn’t help himself.
None-the-less they were both such proud parents, that when the time came around for his first Christmas nativity to be cast they were eagerly anticipating Mattie getting the part of Joseph or a wiseman. What they hadn’t been prepared for was him being cast as a tree! Amanda told me she was gutted. This performance at Fynamore Primary School was perhaps his only foray into drama.
Whist he was at primary school, Matt took up Tai Kwon Do at Calne Leisure Centre and, as with everything that he did, he worked hard to make good progress, which he did well through the junior levels, and then went on to gain a couple of belts at adult level. However, after a few years his interests changed and so he dropped it.
Another sport that Matt got involved with was football. He played for Calne FC at junior level for a lot of years and he was a strong supporter of Man Utd.
From Fynamore, Matt went on to John Bentley School, as it was called then. To begin with, well for the first few years in fact, there was still a good level of silliness and messing about.
However, once it got to his GCSE years, everything really clicked into place and, although he was still going out and about with his friends a lot, he began to focus on his studies – to the point that, when it came to revising for the actual exams, he would have his mum spending ages, testing him over and over and over again, with flash cards and questions. He had become very, very motivated and ambitious.
All through his time at John Bentley, Matt had to be in top set for everything and if ever he was not initially placed in the top set, he would work his socks off to get himself there. Basically, he always wanted to be the best. Amanda told me that she had instilled in him that you make your own luck in life; you control your own destiny; that very few people just get lucky in life, they succeed because they have chosen an attitude to have. Well Matt certainly did choose an attitude and he chose to work hard and to play hard.
His attitude towards succeeding was also evident outside of school; he was big on gaming, in particular FIFA on his X-Box. He would play Call of Duty sometimes and for a while, he played Fortnight. His competitive nature showed through in his gaming – he always had to win and would go into a temper and have a bit of a melt-down if he didn’t.
Overall, although he was a cheeky chappie, he really worked hard and really pushed himself. The proof was in the results; Mattie took ten GCSE’s and he passed all of them with good grades.
At the end of the GCSE examinations, Amanda and Neil wanted to arrange something special to mark the occasion. The prom was coming up and it was to be held at Bowood. So, they decided to organise the transport for Mattie and about thirty of his friends, to get there.
Instead of the usual limousine for transport they got an open-top yellow bus which took them touring around Wiltshire before they arrived at the venue. However, the bus was for the lads only. They didn’t want the girls on the bus, not even on the bottom deck although all of the boys were on the top deck. Matt absolutely loved it and he and his mates would often talk about the prom night.
After GCSE’s Mattie stayed on to do his A levels in Business Studies, History and Geography. Despite the earlier messing around at school, his infectious personality meant that Matt had always got on with all of his teachers. Over his last couple of years at John Bentley, he did have a particularly close relationship with Mr Tudor, the Headteacher.
Whilst in the sixth form, there was a student leadership team. Students had to be nominated to stand for membership of the team then go through interviews and presentations. Matt got a place, and he was responsible for inspiring performance. Basically, he always said that he was just an average kid, not particularly academic, but if you work really hard and focus, you could do really well. So, Matt went to Mr Tudor and said that what he wanted to do was to work with the younger children in the school who perhaps weren’t very focused, to try and inspire and motivate them and show them that they could turn things around. He was like a role model for them, because he had done an amount of mucking about in his younger years. You see, he wasn’t brilliantly academically gifted, although he was bright as was reflected in his exam results, but he worked really hard to achieve his good results.
Mr Tudor has written about Matthew, “I remember him coming to say that he wanted a role that was a little different to what had gone before, when he represented the student leadership team. He wanted to work with kids who had maybe not tried their best earlier on in school but who had potential. He recognised that he could be a role model to such pupils and wanted to show them how they could turn things around if they really wanted to. That showed real class and maturity.”
Mattie had been very keen to go to Swansea University after visiting there; he seemed to know immediately that this was the place for him, so it was his first choice. Of course, there is no guarantee of getting the first choice but Matt’s grades got him to where he wanted to be.
He was so excited to be going to University and he started a degree in Business Management last September; he loved it. With his lively, outgoing nature he quickly became popular among the other students and had no problem making lots of new friends. Matt was in his element enjoying the night life that Swansea had to offer and living in Halls.
