Darryl Jonathan Gittins

Darryl Jonathan Gittins, born on Nov. 4, 1959, in Cape Town, South Africa.

Died June 11, 2026, in Victoria, Canada.

The family – his mother Joan Campeau (nee Rogers), and his bothers Llew Gittins and Jules Campeau – moved to England and then to Canada, where Darryl grew up into a proper hockey-loving Canadian.

There wasn’t a year when he didn’t think the Vancouver Canucks would improve.

He graduated from Port Coquitlam Senior Secondary in 1977, his fondest memories were playing saxophone in the marching band. His great love of music began there, not always manifested in preferences that others shared. Among friends and family, this was known as “the Frank Zappa conundrum.”

Darryl and Justine met in 1982, at a house party in Burnaby B.C. Darryl always said he knew right away that he had met his life partner. Justine, being the more cautious of the two, waited all of 24 hours before reaching the same conclusion.

Darryl promptly quit his job with BC Tel because of its travel requirements, thus abandoning what would have been the start of a lovely pension plan.

He began working at International Submarine Engineering (ISE), a fantastic opportunity for him to dive into ocean technology with almost no qualifications. On paydays, he and his colleagues would race to the bank to cash their paycheques, never certain if the company would remain solvent long enough to pay its employees.

Darryl later parlayed his considerable technical skills into a career in military research with Defence Research Establishment Pacific (DREP), testing the remote submarines he had worked on at ISE beneath the Arctic ice. It was a travel requirement both more exotic and satisfying than the one he abandoned with the phone company.

He loved his lengthy Arctic trips with DREP, which offered plenty of opportunity to fix things in remote and harsh conditions, and to travel by skidoo over vast icefields, sometimes pursued by not-disinterested packs of wolves – a great source of delight to him.

The Arctic connection also allowed him to reassure his goddaughter –- in the face of her Santa-denying classmates -- that the North Pole existed as advertised because he’d been there.

Next came a long and rewarding career working in internet security for Microsoft. As with the Canucks, eternal optimist Darryl never doubted that the next security release would be technologically impenetrable.

The security gig allowed Darryl to work from his basement command centre, where he was also able to monitor first-hand his expanding family. Son Rhys arrived in 2003, followed by Vester in 2006.

Darryl was incredibly dedicated to his work, consisting as it did of fending off the hacker-driven collapse of the operating system for global civilization. He never missed a day, even while fighting prostate cancer.

His technical skills were breathtaking, especially to the uninitiated. He was fond of demonstrating that if one slapped a live electrical outlet with a bare hand quickly enough, one would not be electrocuted.

More commendably, he developed a quiet service of providing refugees and other needy folk with rebuilt computers and other technology support. Many recipients discovered that nothing made Darryl happier than helping people.

No portrait of Darryl would be complete without acknowledging his enthusiasms, from Monty Python, to Warner Brothers cartoons, to Tom Waits, to Captain Beefheart. No memorial to him would be complete without mentioning Zappa second time.

His biggest enthusiasm was for life itself.

Darryl is predeceased by his mother Joan Campeau, and his father George Gittins.

Darryl is survived by his wife Justine Hunter, and his sons Rhys and Vester Gittins, his brothers Llew and Jules, his sisters Andrea Campeau Feser, Jacqui Woolfson (Gittins) Laeni-Anya Gittins and Lindsey Gittins.

Justine would like to offer deep appreciation to the team of Victoria paramedics and the emergency room doctors and nurses at Royal Jubilee hospital for their efforts to revive Darryl after a sudden heart attack.

Darryl supported many charities, from animal welfare to medical research to social agencies helping people in need. In lieu of flowers, please make a donation to a charity of choice.

A celebration of life will be held at the Multifaith Centre at the University of Victoria on July 5 at 1:30, and a livestream will be available from Darryl's Facebook page.