Messages & Tributes

It is with great sadness that Peter Norman Tudhope Nelson has passed away. However, I will continue to carry his memory in my heart. He was one of the few—if not the greatest—influences in many of the things I do today. I often find myself quoting or referring to him in my daily life: “Peter Nelson said this,” or “Peter Nelson would have done it this way,” or simply, “I learned it from PNT,” as he...

Dad was a builder, he thought, he designed, and took the time to make. He built digitally, in wood and in metal. He built with his head and his hands, he built his home and garden. He and mom built our family. We grieve because that is the price of love. But I realise only now that is not the price for the love we gave that can no longer be given but even more for the loss of the love that was g...

For as long as I can remember, and to this day, whenever I’ve faced a difficult question, or a challenging task, I would seek Dad’s guidance or think to myself. What would Dad do? I know that many of us here today feel the same way. But why? Was it his kindness? Was it his intellect? Was it his wisdom? It was, of course, all of those, but I think the real reason - the essence that summed u...

He was not someone who simply accepted the world as it appeared. He leaned in closer. He asked why. And then, inevitably, how. How does this work? What holds it together? What happens if we take it apart and understand it piece by piece? For him, curiosity wasn’t a phase or a hobby. It was a way of being. He saw structure where others saw surface. Patterns where others saw noise. Possibility wh...

3 days a week, every week, for 40 years. 6,000 games. Peter Nelson, Peter Timcke and Camillo Pino. 3 friends united in a passion for this strange game. Intensely physical, precise, powerful. Private. I loved playing squash with Dad. We didn't go to the rugby, or the golf course, but the time on the squash court was ours. He loved making me run around him to every corner, mixing power with fines...

A tool is something that helps you get things done, and Dad loved to get things done. Dad collected tools, and with those tools, he amplified his work. Old tools. New tools. Hammers and saws and chisels. Rulers, verniers and micrometers. Lathes, milling machines, CNC machines. Big tools. Small tools. Traditional tools. Modern tools. And when the right tool didn't exist, Dad made one for the ...

Smell evokes powerful memories. For me, there are 3 that are forever tied to my Dad. The smell of rubber. My earliest memories are walking through the factories at Prolock and JMP with Dad, the smell of rubber heavy in the air. Dad teaching me to smell the difference between different types. Burning a small piece to identify it. The smell permeating all the offices. A smell of industry, of pro...

They say a person’s life is best measured not in years, but in the echoes they leave behind in the hearts of others. For Uncle Peter, those echoes are everywhere, in the stories my mom tells of their childhood, in the laughter that filled our Christmases in Johannesburg, and in the quiet strength of the family he built. To my mom, he was the older brother she adored, a constant figure in the tape...

Memories from our childhood at 32 Ontdekkers come flooding back. All of them helped mold me into the person I became. Let me share just one. In 1971 Peter and I rode together from 32 to Wits University five days a week ( in his beautiful, self paid for, brand new green corvette.) Every day he set it as a goal to cover this distance in 25 minutes or less. ( Absolutely impossible to do that today!!...

Dad loved to say this Zulu and Xhosa tongue twister : "Iqaqa laziqikaqika kwaze kwaqhawaka uqhoqhoqho." Translation: "The polecat rolled down and ruptured its larynx"

Another go-to poem of Dad's. The time has come,' the Walrus said, To talk of many things: Of shoes — and ships — and sealing-wax — Of cabbages — and kings — And why the sea is boiling hot — And whether pigs have wings.' To hear him recite this word for word to Xavier, watch this video: http://localhost:3000/gallery?item=4f3f0c4d-8e8c-4a94-97d1-9290648b1cfd Full poem here: http...

Dad had this poem mounted and it hung outside my childhood bedroom door. It's now in my office and I still think of it nearly every day, and when I do I think of Dad. If you can keep your head when all about you Are losing theirs and blaming it on you, If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you, But make allowance for their doubting too; If you can wait and not be tired by ...