On the day of his death, two young trainspotters watched him for half an hour pacing backwards and forwards on a footbridge over the London-Edinburgh railway line at Low Fell, Gateshead. He was openly weeping, talking to himself and occasionally pounding the bridge rail with his fists. He stepped down from the bridge and killed himself by walking in front of an oncoming express train. When the effects of his father's suicide had subsided Mattie returned home to stay with his elder brother Hughie, before moving to South Africa in 1965.