Some memories from J. J. O’Sullivan (‘Sully’) – an old Primary School Friend

Some memories from J. J. O’Sullivan (‘Sully’) – an old Primary School and Carshalton AFC following friend of Rob Steel (written in August 2020)

A good few years before Rob attended…

 In my final year at the Holy Family Junior School, I had the pleasure of sitting next to Rob as we prepared for our eleven-plus exams. We must have got on because I went round to his maisonette home in Reynolds Close and met his mother. His home was situated beside the River Wandle and we went fishing for sticklebacks with our nets. He also showed me his newts that he kept in a jam jar. I'd never seen newts before. Sometime later he'd moved to Acre Lane in Carshalton and I popped round for a game of chess (or draughts). Now, of course, I have a copy of Rob's book entitled "River Wandle Companion".

As well as myself and Rob we also had Paul Merton (Martin) in our playground, although he was a few years younger than us. Paul lived in Morden Hall Road on the St Helier Estate. The only other famous pupil we had at our junior school was former one-hit-wonder pop star Jimmy Justice. He lived in No 1 Sibton Road.

I don't remember Rob being sporty. We did do a project together on 'Meteorology'. (On leaving school I applied for a job at the London Weather Centre; got the interview but failed to get the necessary qualifications). I was very proud of our meteorology project but I never got to keep the finished article. I always meant to ask Rob what happened to it.

Rob passed his eleven plus. I didn't and we went our separate ways. I moved onto St Theresa's Secondary School which was based on three sites: Grand Drive, Morden, Montacute Road, Morden and Winchcombe Road, Carshalton. Our woodwork, metalwork, science, and technical drawing classes were based at Winchcombe Road. Our Form class and French lessons were held in Grand Drive. Maths. English and PE were based at Montacute Road. To get from one class to another we had to walk. At the end of the year, we hadn't learned a lot because of all the time taken walking from one class to another, but we were fit!

The next time I saw Rob was on the terraces at the Robins. In the meantime, he'd carved out a career in teaching. I was also aware that he took an interest in CAMRA, walking and was involved with the Green Party. I was pleased when you told me he'd got married. Several years ago, while visiting the London Open Squares and Gardens, myself and Olly (my wife) bumped into Rob and his bike at Dolphin Square, in Pimlico. We had a chat and slagged off the Carshalton Athletic owner. The last time I met Rob was at a midweek Newport v Robins match.

My memories of Rob Steel by Robin Ashton (August 2021)

Boxing day 1992! CAFC v The Scummers (Sutton United)

I had known Rob for around fifty years, by far the greater part of my adult life, when he so sadly left us in 2020. He was one of a small group of Carshalton and area based youngsters who were initially acquainted on the terraces of Carshalton Athletic Football Club around the early 1970’s.

Rob was a passionate follower of ‘The Robins’ with, it seemed to me, only a passing interest in the wider football or sporting world. He wasn’t quite as regular a match attending supporter as many of us, mainly because he had such a full and varied life outside the confines of CAFC. His absences never seemed to quell his passion for the Club however and his boisterous and vocal celebrations (or castigations) were in sharp contrast to my usual more reserved approach. Actually I like to think I was a more considered and analytical supporter than him, which is ironic given his far superior intellect! He could never quite understand my football watching reserve and never ceased to tease me about it.        

Taken after a game played (at CAFC) on 26/4/2008 v Tonbridge Angels, last match of the 2007/8 season.   Left to Right – Garry Evenden; Peter Randell; Rob; James Hopkins.

Rob’s individuality extended to him usually appearing at ‘Robins’ games on a bicycle (which was quite unusual in the early years), invariably clutching both a flask of tea and a dog eared copy of Private Eye and/or The Guardian, not the usual football supporter’s reading choice. Particularly at home games he often only appeared at half-time, ostensibly because he had been busy on one of his many other activities.  But we also suspected and reminded him that it was more likely that he just wanted to avoid paying the match entrance fee!  It remains a travesty that Rob, alongside many other long serving and passionate ‘Robins’ supporters, were latterly sidelined by the Paul Dipre ownership regime, simply for expressing a contrary opinion.  

Rob would of course spend the half time interval supping that home made tea, reading his preferred choice of literature and chewing a food product of uncertain vintage, extracted from the depths of his well worn rucksack. This habit, with him most often adorned in his ancient ‘Robins’ maroon and white scarf (knitted by his mother many years before) made him a distinctive figure on the terraces. He would spend much of his footie watching time pacing up and down chatting to other individuals and groups, so comfortable was he from an early age in his socialising and ability to offer an opinion on pretty much any subject!

Lincoln City v CAFC – pre-match pic taken before the Robins played them in the FA Trophy in Jan 2014.

Left to Right – Peter Randell; Dave Ayling; Garry Evenden; Simon Fuller; James Hopkins; Rob of course (with the famous scarf); Tony Nash.

Although I often felt intellectually on a different (ok…lower) plane than Rob he was always good company and never knowingly superior, was quite happy to chat about almost anything, generous spirited and fascinating to listen or talk to on a wider range of topics than you usually hear at a football game. I acknowledge that although we were near contemporaries in age he helped me with my wider education and appreciation of the world beyond suburban London.    

Our friendship developed to extend beyond just the local football scene. By the mid-1970’s Rob had already travelled quite widely, at least in the UK. By then I had started to join him on walking trips, sometimes just the two of us, more often with a larger group. These were tremendously enjoyable; although I always disappointed him with my lack of appreciation of and serious application to real ale drinking! 

CAFC followers party circa 1977 at Andy Hill’s house:

Pictured in the first photo left to right – Rob; Carol and Mike Smith; Kevin Rolfe; Andy Hill; John O’Gorman; Joe and Hilary Musgrave.

The first trip I recall was when he was still studying full time, by then to be teacher, at Nottingham University; I guess around 1973/4? At that time he was staying at lodgings in Long Eaton, just over the county border in Derbyshire. His resident landlord & lady were kind enough to put me up in their house for the weekend and I have vivid memories of that trip. Rob’s passion for current affairs extended to him scrutinising the national and local newsprint at every opportunity, even at meal times. I can recall our hosts (quite rightly) ticking him off for being so rude and unsociable in doing so when we were sharing dinner with them on our first night! His bewildered and hurt expression was something to behold. 

We spent a couple of full days hiking in the nearby Peak District, reinforcing my favourable first impressions of the area from a school trip a few years earlier. Fast forward some thirty years and Philippa found ourselves living here, partly thanks to Rob’s enthusiasm and knowledge.

Trips away during the decades following that Nottingham trip were often back to the Peak District, where Rob would sometimes book a large property, usually around the New Year, and invite a range of friends from often contrasting aspects of his life. These were invariably memorable occasions with good company, some great outdoor exercise (trying to keep up with his searing pace and instant map reading!) and copious amounts of food and drink in the local hostelries. He would later make some of these even more famous in his acclaimed ‘Pub Walks’ books.    

When we moved to the Peak District in 2003 this presented the then still Carshalton based Rob an opportunity to visit one of his favourite areas even more regularly, sometimes using our place as his base for further exploration. He was always happy to ‘work for his keep’ when staying with us and he helped in the early years on some of our garden landscaping projects. His many skills included being a fearless and competent proponent of more or less any sort of DIY.  Philippa used to try to keep him out of our kitchen though!

As a (then) lifelong ‘single bloke’ he wasn’t always the tidiest or most fastidious of guests. We have many memories of Rob’s room after he had left us; there was certainly no evidence of even any cursory cleaning, or basic tidying up. It’s no wonder he became famous for leaving belongings behind when he left! 

He also had a penchant for turning up at our place with food to share, such as a slab of cheese or fruit and veg. These usually had the appearance of having occupied the bottom of his rucksack for several days and in all weather conditions. Again his bewildered expression when we questioned its suitability to eat was always something to behold. He would happily sample the actual product of course, to demonstrate its wholesomeness and freshness, using his fingers and certainly not any unnecessary cutlery. We could never quite train him on the domestic hygiene front, but are sure Jacqui eventually had some success.

He often talked about having his own base in our area and was eventually able to buy a small cottage in Belper, between Matlock and Derby. When he and Jacqui met they spent quite a lot of time there. Typically kind spirited he let Philippa and me use it at any time he (or they) weren’t, which I took advantage of when I was ‘seconded out’ by my employers, Derbyshire County Council, from my Matlock base, to work for Derby City Council. By staying at Belper a night or two a week I was able to shorten the stress of lots of extra travelling.

We were so chuffed when he met Jacqui relatively late in life and he seemed so content and happy to have done so. Their wedding day particularly was a joyous occasion. We had already joined him for the odd day on one of his other ventures, the ‘Ale Trails’ group walking and pub visit holidays, usually based on his acclaimed books. We first met Jacqui on one of these and latterly spent time with them in Carshalton, Derbyshire and Downton (Wiltshire), where they eventually based themselves. We witnessed the joy that developing a new home and garden in Downton brought them.

I still miss you greatly Rob, almost a year on from your passing as I write this. I am frequently reminded of the good times that we had together as Philippa and I continue to walk the paths and lanes of the area that you loved and shared the delights of with so many. 

I am blessed and grateful to have known you and had the privilege of sharing some of your passions.  Rest in peace my friend.

Patricks memory lane

I have not ignored this; I have rather wandered down memory lane and wondered (sic!) which stories to choose..

 The Three Stags Heads and CHARACTER!! The rather luxurious pad that had central heating that he had accidentally booked - and then, preferring not to go back there on New Year’s Night, because I had accidentally remained sober –which meant the offer was doable- so you two stayed for a night of murder and mayhem!

 His ability to walk into any pub (well anywhere, really) and end up in lively debate with anybody there, whilst the rest of us shyly drank beer and chatted amongst ourselves!

 Is he the only man I know who EVER used the word ‘WASOCK’? (wazzoch?)

 His use of the word ‘limo’ for ANY car, always making me think of him a sort of Dylanesque star.

 How it annoyed & amused him that I remembered him as chair of the YC’s in the sixth form.

 The mushrooms, he denied they were toadstools, growing out of the woodwork of his Morris Traveller –SO APT

The REMOVAL of central heating from Palmerston Rd. rather than just ‘switching it off’ as we moderns call it

 His touching belief in his affinity with ‘pooches’ -  I warned him several times that they looked a smidge growly but ‘NO, THEY LOVE ME’ followed by a sort of cartoonlike attack!

 The trip to Rum in the Western Isles, with you – when the only shop had a four pack of lager as the ONLY alcohol until the next supply boat three days later..which I naturally snapped up and of which Rob reluctantly partook as there was no alternative (‘TINA’ another Rob-ism for  LA THATCH an expression which ,again, I think of as entirely his...  

 The time he followed THE WHO ‘round Britain.

 Sitting (in my mind always) in Palmerston Rd. listening to revelatory music after pubs, parties drinking the WORST coffee   

 His amazing gentleness with the elderly and yoof

Yet more random pictures

Something you would never find in Robs abode!

Frighteningly young me and Rob

Jaqui, with part of my wedding present to them.

An early view of Robs beloved Carshalton. Palmerston Road already built behind the ponds.

Rob dug a large pond in the garden at Downton.

The established pond

Brig Oubridge -the master of “standing orders” at Ecology Party conferences.

John O’Gorman (left) and Gary Annis in JFS uniforms.

Very surprisingly Rob wrote this once “I'm sure Graham will tell his own story, we kind of got to know each other pretty well after leaving JFS and I even got to be very good friends with John O Gorman who used to torment me mercilessly whilst we were in the junior forms.”

Rob at Creek Cottage in Walberswick - we used to go there every misty autumn for a few days - a magical place.

Rob and the Robins

Rob kept this website going for many years:-

Welcome to Beerhound's Isthmian real ale site, now revamped for its second season. If you've got a passion for the non league game, enjoy your cask ale and want to see the world (well South East England anyway), then you've come to the right place.
Now you've got the opportunity to get a little further than the clubhouse bar, and see a bit of the home team's patch, or at least the inside of a pub or two.

Last year we started with the Ryman Premier, and spurred by the incentive of the relegation of his local team, Beerhound's intention is to add Division One as the season progresses.
As not even Beerhound can get round all of the entries himself from his Carshalton kennels he relies upon the good offices of fans like yourself to suggest entries for inclusion (or deletion!) To that end, there is a messageboard on the site to enable you to share your thoughts and suggestions with others; and/or you can email me directly with any suggestions, better maps, etc!
This is definitely NOT a site for lager louts, and beerhound is a fully paid up CAMRA pooch. The sole raison d'etre for inclusion should be that the pub offers cask ale in good condition.
To use the site, simply click on the name of the team whose locality you are about to visit, and away you go. There are also suggestions for visitors coming by car, which may be en route to the ground some miles away. Better still, use the train and have a couple of extra pints! Most grounds are well served by public transport.

THANKS TO: All those who have responded with information already, and in particular a special thanks to John Barker of Aldershot Town for invaluable assistance with research and mapping
Thanks also to our friends at Power2 Web Media, Carshalton, for again hosting this site for free. If you need web media services, why not visit www.power2.co.uk?

DISCLAIMER! Beerhound accepts no responsibility for the quality of beer, ambience or severity of hangover experienced by visitors to any establishment listed here!

CARSHALTON

Here is Beerhounds entry for Carshalton!

Beerhound's home territory, so this page at least ought to be good! The temporary clubhouse is no better endowed with real ale than the last one, destroyed in a disastrous fire three years ago. Help is at hand...

Carshalton has a long history and the attractive old village offers a good choice for visitors, all less than 10 minutes walk from the station. Moreover, if you feel like it, Sutton is very close (1 mile west) and there are several further good options there, notably the Lord Nelson (Youngs) very close to the Carshalton border and 15 mins walk from the ground.

The nearest pub to the station and the ground is the RAILWAY TAVERN* (1), a small one bar Victorian Fullers house on the corner of North St and Camden Rd. A 'Good Beer Guide' regular. There is a beer garden. Snacks available.

Carshalton's best-known pub is the old GREYHOUND INN* (2), picturesquely sited overlooking the pond, with (expensive apart from the Ordinary Bitter) Young's beers served in excellent condition (CAMRA local pub of the year 2004 and 2005). There is an extensive food menu.

At the other end of the pond are two adjacent pubs, these are (i) the COACH & HORSES(3), another small one room pub with (usually) Bass and London Pride available; and (ii) the Woodman, a former butcher's shop, with at present, Young's, and Charles Wells Bombardier on draught. A bit more expensive than most of the competition and I wouldn't think a very suitable option for scarf wearing footie types.

The WINDSOR CASTLE* (4),used to be a real ale mecca, but neither the quality nor the range is as it was. Hancocks (for some reason) and London Pride are pretty much regulars, the others are guests. You might be lucky with the quality-A large pub (also noted for its serious food). Note shortcut walking route back to ground via Shorts Rd (<10mins).

The SUN (5) is an old railway hotel, a two bar pub with an interesting layout and a friendly Irish landlord. Harvey's Bitter is a welcome regular ale, also London Pride, and (if you like that kind of thing) Old Speckled Hen (no food).

Back to the High Street, at the far end, is the FOX & HOUNDS (6), an old building much refurbished, which has had a rough patch recently with and would not recommend a special journey for, although having said that there are occasionally interesting guest beers on, and the Saturday lunchtime clientele isn't too bad. Full menu available. If you're feeling adventurous, or its a nice day, the DUKE'S HEAD* (7) at Wallington Green, another Young's house, sits on pleasant green with some outside tables.

Other places serving real ale include THE RACE HORSE (worth a look) and THE HOPE, both West St. If you're teetotal, or recovering from Friday night, the Heritage centre cafe (by the East Pond, near the Greyhound, has a very pleasant setting.

Hopefully some of Bobs friends can add some happier memories of Robs lifelong support of The Robins than this sad epistle:-

Dear Mr -,
The board of directors met yesterday and after due consideration have decided to
impose an immediate permanent ban on your attendance of the club. No other
fans, officials, managers or volunteers were involved in this decision, directly or
indirectly. The ban was not imposed as a result of any statements, comments,
allegations from any other fans, officials, managers or volunteers, directly or
indirectly.
The club will not make any further comment nor will review its decision.
If you, or any of your colleagues harass, publish libellous statements, intimidate
staff, officials, fans or managers at the club, on-line, in person or at away matches
we will inform the police and/or take legal action against you.
By Order of the Board
Paul Dipre, Paul Williams, Clare Dipre, Kelly Anscom "

The information they were giving to Kingstonian and Carlshalton fans at the weekend......
Carshalton Athletic RIP?
· In early December, 6 first team supporters were advised by the club that they are now banned from the ground for LIFE
o Nothing happened to give rise to this new life ban
o No reasons were given to justify the life ban
o No right of appeal has been given
o Threats of legal action against them if they dare question this ruling
o No response from the club to reasonable enquiries as to why this action has been taken

· This is just the latest episode in the intimidation of first team supporters by the board and the chairman, that has seen attendances reduce dramatically since the current regime took over
· We believe more fans have now been banned in the five years under the current management than in the entire history of Carshalton Athletic
CAISC was formed to bring together supporters, to support the first team, and to try to open discussion with the board, which despite best efforts has not happened to date
Please support CAISC in their efforts to open dialogue with the club to get these unjust life bans overturned,.
Act Now before it’s too late please! "

Recollections of Rob by David Job

Recollections of Rob by David Job

My recollections of Rob are many but our cycling exploits stand out so I am attaching a photo of Rob on the Tarka Trail in North Devon during a short tour down to Plymouth on the Devon Coast to Coast cycleroute. Sadly I can no longer find that glorious bank of primroses but the memory of that glorious spring morning will endure and somehow encapsulates Rob's vibrancy, cheeky grin and energy.

There were other times when we followed a similar route, on one occasion with my young children and Molly, a small Jack Russel. I was a little apprehensive as to how Rob might respond to this motley collection of cycling companions. As we tackled the hills and variable weather I was so delighted at the caring and genuine ways in which he engaged with both dog and small children. Through our mutual involvement in geographical fieldwork over the years I had observed his skill and care in organising and connecting with older, secondary school children so it was a joy to see his ability to show the same kind of empathy with these younger beings.

Much of my connection with Rob stemmed from our professional involvement in geography education and as I got to know him better during jointly organised field trips, it was a delight to discover more and more shared territory - cycletouring, environmental campaigning, authentic ales and pubs, vernacular architecture, an appreciation of landscape and wilderness - though for some reason I was never aware of his attainments on the chessboard. Probably just as well as it sounds like I would have suffered speedy and humiliating defeats.

I knew little of Rob's life in Carshalton apart from his teaching at Wallington Boys Grammar. On the one occasion when I visited Tower Cottage I loved the beautiful quirky dwelling that was so characteristic of Rob's finely tuned aesthetic. I happened to glance at a quarterly electricity bill that was lying on his desk - I think it was for £34, a telling reminder of his simple lifestyle and practical adherence to his green principles.

Even before we lost dear Rob, his pub guides were the most prized feature of my bookshelves. There is such a wealth of material in these volumes beyond his love and respect for fine ale. His joyful appreciation of pub interiors, vernacular buildings and landscape expressed through succinct and beautifully composed text shine through all the volumes - as does his outrage and critique of the forces which threaten the traditions he valued.

In recent years Rob continued to visit us in Devon with Jacqui where they both enjoyed trips to the gardens at Rosemoor where they found inspiration and ideas for their new home at Downton. They were both due to visit in June 2020 for an exhibition there but sadly this plan was scuppered by the virus.

If all this sounds a bit too wholesome we must also recollect and appreciate Rob's streaks of wildness and political commitment. His love of the Who's album "Live at Leeds", his appreciation of the Clash and his enthusiastic embrace of rock, punk and folk. The way in which his passion for Green ideologies encompassed both standing as green candidate in several general and local elections and energetic campaigning and participation in direct actions.

It has been a real pleasure to read other contributions from Rob's friends which have opened up new aspects of Rob's life, so thank you and do keep them coming.

It is painful to dwell on the latter months of Rob's life and it somehow seems intrusive to do so. There are probably no answers but the toll of acquaintances and friends (all male) whose lives have been cut short in similar ways does lead me to dwell on this.

Some memories from Graham

Memories of Rob Steel - still a work in progress.

I first came across Rob at the John Fisher School in Purley, our old alma mater. I say “came across” rather than “met” because I don't recall much of, if any, interaction at school. He was in the same year as me but a “stream” above. While I was in the middle stream, he was in the top stream. He was also a member of “The God Squad” a small group of boys who were much keener on the Catholic faith than I ever was. He was also fairly Conservative in his political outlook, and at one point chairman of the YC’s. He was also an ace chess player.

At school, he would have been exposed to three of the school's best teachers - all Geography masters. The meticulous Norman Rice, the amusing Ben Weston, and the very young Mick Legg.

I  remember him especially with several others reciting many “Moggerisms”, amusing words uttered by our eccentric French Teacher Mr. Mogford - I can still hear Rob imitating his voice in phrases like “Every time I open my mouff some damn fool speaks”...  Of course in that school, we only used surnames so he would have been Steel to me and because Rob’s voice broke rather late he actually had the nickname of Squeal...

Sixth formers at John Fisher School from Robs year

After the 6th form I don't remember seeing Rob for some years. I mostly kept in touch with John O’Gorman and on breaks from university we would meet up in the Cricketers in Croydon or the Greyhound in Carshalton. Sometimes in the Greyhound John would turn up with Rob and I  know I wasn't always that happy to see him. He was fairly opinionated and rather dominated the conversation. He had a holiday job in an industrial laundry and had tales of rooms full of steam, folding sheets and towels which sounded awful until his father got him a summer job at the Ministry of Defence (where his dad worked). I believe he was a sort of janitor there, moving desks and maybe missiles about in Whitehall.

It was around this time while at the University of Southampton that I believe Rob had his “epiphany” and left the young conservatives. He told me that he saw a report in the “Daily Telegraph” about an event he had attended and the report was so inaccurate and the editorial so biased against it that he had to rethink everything.

At this time Rob was famed for his unique “Handsweeping” gesture, used when speaking of a politician or other miscreant. It could very easily knock over any beer glass on a table that was within his striking distance and happened more than you might think.

After the pub - Rob, John, maybe a few others and I would head back with him to his parent’s house on Acre Lane. While John and I listened to records upstairs in his bedroom, Rob would prepare on a tray a neat mix of honey and marmite sandwiches and dreadful coffee. I always hid his hairbrush (did he ever use one?) in his bed to irritate him.

Evidently, I got used to him as when I finally moved down from York a year after finishing my degree, the Greyhound and Rob was somewhere I always went on Friday nights. Along with Patrick, John, Paul Nicholas and his “interesting” friend Jon (“what's your favourite car? have you got a sister?”) as well as mad Mick Crowley. Rob had also been away an extra year at teacher training in Nottingham and doing his practice in Long Eaton. He was undoubtedly the central figure of the meeting.

That was about when he introduced me to Youth Hostelling. We traveled up on a National Express coach to Bakewell and Rob got us let off at the start of the road to Youlgrave. A very long dark walk up a lane next to a river saw us get to the hostel just in time to check-in and then get to both a pub and the chippie. The first of very many “just made it” moments on trips with Rob. However it was an excellent trip confirming me in hostelling and giving me the same love of the Peak District as Rob.

Soon after this was a hostelling visit to Ironbridge where his geography, history and love of vernacular architecture were clearly on display in a foggy, autumnal landscape with constant coal fire smells in the air. 

We arrived at the youth hostel on a pitch black night - situated appropriately on a road called Paradise - so we woke up the next morning to find ourselves literally transported back in time to the beginnings of the industrial age.

Rob was now teaching at Wallington Boys and other teachers would appear - notably Rob Scales and Neville Lane who he had met on a training course 

Also, as Gay has so well documented, at age 23, Rob took note of something called the Ecology Party and together with elderly Quaker Richard Allen and a few others started the Sutton branch. This was the source of another vast bunch of new friends. Jan Skelton, Milly Price, Nina Dodd, Mark Brett, Nick Greaves and Karin Andrews...with this influx the drinking venue changed - and we met at the Sun pub late into a Friday night with landlord Dennis. “Come on you Greens” - his cry at the eventual closing time, and there were regular meetings in the room upstairs for party business (yawn)

Rob rented a room in a large house on a road just above Sutton Station. I recall the amazing exploding compost bin in the kitchen from which escaped an enormous number of writhing maggots, a very notable all-night party was held there, and it was the inspiration for  Rob's classic quote “ The trouble with women is they use all your bog roll.”

I think it was about this time that he purchased his Morris Traveller, I went with him to somewhere near Redhill where it was for sale and the deed was done. It was a great car, but as Patrick mentions, prone to mushrooms and moss in the woodwork and with a non-working petrol gauge and only occasionally functioning starter motor. He had something against putting petrol in the tank so it was always running out of juice. He carried a small reserve in a can, so after stalling it was topped up and then he had to hand-crank it to start it again, usually and embarrassingly this happened in the middle of a junction - and he would go to absoloutly any length to avoid paying for parking.

Rob sailed quite close to the limit on drink and driving, one trip to visit Dave Fryer near Redhill was particularly bad. Both of us had more than a few pints and he put the pedal to the metal to get back to Dave's house, executing a fine emergency stop to screech into the driveway - it could have been a scene from one of Rob’s favourite film “Vanishing Point”.

After a few years, the dry rot in the woodwork got a little too much even for Rob and he purchased a kit of all the bits of wood needed to rebuild it. With incredible patience and diligence, he eventually managed to complete one side and a rear door, but it was never to take to the road again..

It was a permanent fixture on his parent’s driveway for some years much to his fathers delight.

I forget when it was exactly but I got a job at Websters bookshop in Croydon. This had many benefits. Some incredible work mates, a place to leave bikes on evening trips to London by train and an ever open coffee shop at all times of night …There were many nights spent with Rob and others in the “staff room” after a London gig, or a bevvy in one of Croydon's pubs, drinking coffee and talking, listening to music way into the early morning...

The recommendation of one of our more trendy Saturday boys (who cut two trousers in half lengthways and stitched them back up so as to have different patterned trouser legs) - a fashion trend I have never seen repeated, was to go to see a group called Doll by Doll playing in East London. We arrived in a very sweaty pub and settled at the back next to some scaffolding. Both of us realised quite soon this was no ordinary gig and was a life-changing experience, hanging on to the scaffolding and watching them perform. 

Wherever Rob lived after that he had their iconic image of Antonin Artaud and the word “Remember” on his wall and whenever we could, we saw them live - later we made every effort to go and see just Jackie Leven, the singer, and songwriter when he came back from illness and began a solo career.

Other groups we followed all over London were Nine below Zero, The Marauders (and their number one fan “The Merchant Sailor” who never spilled a drop of his beer, dancing, while more than three sheets to the wind), Gerraint Watkins and the Balham Alligators, Dr Feelgood, Brett Marvin, Queen Ida, Rockin Doopsie…. We went to the Croydon folk club and saw Mike Moran, Rob's beloved Dick Gaughn and on almost every visit a guest song from “The Incredible Singing Robin”. (the only person I know with a worse singing voice than me)

Soon after that he started looking for his own house and eventually settled on one in Tharp Road in Wallington. In need of a tenant to help with the mortgage, it was me who fitted the bill. The house did not completely suit Rob's taste or style and he immediately had plans to, not exactly modernise, but Rob’ise it. The wall between the kitchen and the downstairs toilet was demolished long before the new one was installed upstairs, so the toilet sat right next to the oven when I moved in. Soon, with his football friend Andy’s help he had a fine new bathroom in gloomy green, his favourite colour, upstairs and a cosy fireplace and monumental mantelpiece above it in the front room. 

I know one abiding memory for him there was my alarm clock- set to go off at 6:00 am every day. I would always forget to turn it off on the occasions I was not going to be there overnight and Rob would be roused, untimely, from his sleep by its steadily increasing noisy buzz. It never stopped until turned off...so he had to trudge round from his room to mine and unplug and fling it across the room.

The very same dreaded alarm clock in America

He  kept it for me after I moved out and kindly presented  it back to me in America at my wedding to Lucy… I had already wrapped it to  give back to him on my return from America twenty years later - just before I heard the sad news of his death.

A very sad moment in Rob’s life was the sudden death of his mother just before Christmas in 19?? I remember sitting with him and his father and Patrick on boxing day struggling to find words to say.

Rob and a very young me, prepare for the Ireland trip. Rob was very amused at the thousands of Websters Bookshop carrier bags I packed everything in.

So many things happened around this time it's hard to keep them in sequence, but there was a fantastic cycle tour of Ireland made during a petrol strike on the unusually quiet Irish roads. Rob persuaded Neville and I to cycle with him to Reading and pick up the boat train there at about nine pm. When he saw us the train guard said - “you'll be lucky” and opened the door to a van crammed with forty or fifty bikes. In fact it was lucky as we threw ours on top of the others and thus at the ferry port were first to get our bikes out. 

Rob had a full itinerary planned, the lack of real ale on route only troubling him as Neville and I coped well with Guinness or Murphys. 

There were the usual Rob “short cuts”, one of which saw us crossing a salt marsh at high tide with brackish water a foot deep, only to find quite a sizeable river blocking our way that had to be crossed on a lot of stepping stones - not the easiest thing to do with a loaded touring bike. Just when we thought it could get no worse we entered and then got lost in a very large rhododendron forest. This trip was what caused me to often call him “Rob route march Steel.”

Other classic memories of that trip are arriving in an Irish town at lunchtime, walking up the length of the street with Rob rejecting each pub or cafe as we came to it for some reason. When we ran out of village and turned round with Rob now prepared to settle for a less than perfect meal, they had all closed (early closing day - remember that?)

In Cork we stayed at Rick O’Sheas pub, a very spartan place with literally curtains on the bed as blankets.

Rob also cycled a Lands End to John O’Groats run with James Deane and Derek Coleman.

Pennine way

Palmerston Road

When Rob flew over for his only visit to America to be best man at my wedding you could still wait by the gate and look through a window as the passengers left the plane and headed down to immigration. Rob had bought our wedding gift which as a heavy Le Creusault Dutch oven as hand luggage together with Gay’s gift a set of cutlery- both would now be banned in our less innocent age.

I wish I could remember the speech he gave at both our pre-nuptial or the wedding itself as they were both very clever. He did as aforementioned, present me with my old and very irritating alarm clock.

Rob borrowed a bike to see a little of Philadelphia and was not I think, vastly impressed by what he saw, though “our” bit of West Philly was an anarchist paradise. He stopped off in New York to visit Heather on his way home and I know went to the top of one of the two towers - he was subsequently a believer in many conspiracy theories about 9/11 from this visit.

He got on very well with Lucy’s brothers, Guy and Barnaby, and subsequently gave them both guided pub tours of London, taking in curries on Brick Lane and many architectural delights of British pub architecture.

Rob was also best man to Paul Nicholas on his wedding to Megan, my main memory of that is of Rob and I watching as Paul tried very ineffectually to iron his shirt on a contour seated chair, wish I could remember more (or any) of that best man speech as well.

Wardlow Mires: this was for a time Rob’s favourite pub, very small and run by two hippies, Geoff and Pat. Geoff was a potter and made the very large plates that the very large meals got served on, if you could keep the very large lurcher dogs they owned from eating it. 

Rob would stay in nearby Tidswell and make the trek to this pub in the middle of nowhere several times a year. Patrick relates one notable night when he headed back sober and driving to the “gaff”, while Rob and I stayed late and slept in the barn across the road with “Animal” and his motorcycling friends. What a noisy, uncomfortable and sleepless night that was. It was also here that I cycled down to the pub between Christmas and New Year with Rob and came off my bike, breaking my elbow. Rob was not very sympathetic at the time as I was on my folding small-wheeled bickerton, but some potholers who were about to leave the pub drove me to Chesterton Hospital. When it turned out I needed an operation Rob was much more sympathetic. 

Also at that that time he had met Caroline, a doctor from Lancashire, through “Natural Friends” and she joined us on several walking trips with her rugged 4 wheel drive Lada and her adventurous dog.Also remembering one very wet trip to Yorkshire with Rob. Steve Gove who I worked with at Websters and a friend of Rob’s from Red Rope headed off to Yorkshire in a very nice old VW bus.

It wasn't the speediest of vehicles till Rob took over driving and we fairly whizzed down country lines till we finally arrived somewhere Rob thought suitable for wild camping. Steve and I were in an old tent I bought in a jumble sale for three pounds and Rob in his super new lightweight three season tent. ?? stayed in the VW . At about 3:00 am Rob’s tent blew down and he moved into the VW which then started leaking through the roof canopy - amazingly my cheapie tent survived OK.

Next morning we walked along in steadily increasing rain. Rob took to walking on top of a drystone wall to get us through some floods till we got to the village of Clapham where we had booked accommodation in the pub that night. We arrived absolutely soaked through and, luckily it turned out, ordered a meal before heading up to our rooms and drying off. When we got back down we found the pub bursting at the seams - not just the bars but the hall and every bit of space - the train line had flooded and a full train of passengers had subsequently arrived in the pub for shelter. 

We got to eat before retiring to our room and out of the maelstrom.

When I was clearing up Rob’s house after his death, I found lots of diaries and letters and photos from his father. It was odd that though Rob would always see his father a few times a week or send him a postcard on his trips away that it was on the odd occasion that I met him that he found out most about what Rob was up to. I guess my mother might say the same sort of thing.

He served in the war on the aircraft carrier HMS Illustrious (that launched the famous Taranto raid) but was badly injured in an accident, (not in action), when his arm was broken so badly it had to be removed below his elbow. He then had a desk job in London. Rob had both his mother and father’s diaries from the war years and it was so poignant to see how he was recording the times they went out together in his, and her recording the same in hers.

There were lots of photos, Anne, soon getting a car, with lots of photos of the family at the seaside and on trips to Anne's native Scotland. (Rob’s dad subsequently learned to Drive at 70 with just one arm!) and every year a holiday to Selbourne. 

Rob's father was a true Daily Telegraph reader and there was much political banter between him and his “Green Son”. Interestingly his fathers best friend was Stan who was an actual communist party member - but they regularly drank together and put the world to rights.

Rob's parents are buried together in Bandon Hill Cemetery in Wallington in grave I 71, I found Rob  kept a small trowel there to keep the sedum groundcover neat and in order.

“I think it was your goodself who first alerted me to this guy’s popular guide books. Well, believe it or not he rang me up tonight. He is in London. We have arranged to meet up next Thursday (14th) and have a two hour shimmy around a few pubs and I think he is going to do a write up on my walks in his next edition! “

(I alerted Rick to Rob’s Aletrails and I think that was what got him so many American customers)

Rob remembered by Steve Archer

                                              ROB REMEMBERED

I suppose I probably first met Rob sometime in the late 1970s when I was working with his great friend, Graham, at Websters Bookshop in the Whitgift Centre. Almost certainly it would have been at an after-work booze session at one of Croydon's hostelries or perhaps at an at-home round at the house in Tharp Road he shared with Graham for a while.

In the 40+ years since then I have kept in intermittent touch with Rob - more so in recent years once we had both thrown off the employment shackles. Mainly we met up as Gig Buddies, sharing somewhat similar musical tastes in Blues and Folk, and both willing to travel to obscure corners of London in search of good music and quality ales. Many great evenings still resonate in the memory:

The Kilborn Alley Blues Band, a great bunch of heavy Chicago dudes who rocked the Oval Tavern and the Sydenham Blues Club...  I was under instruction from Rob to inform him immediately when they paid rare visits to the UK.

Dear old Tom Paley, the 80+ year-old veteran of the Sixties New York folk scene who had played with Woody Guthrie, no less....

Slim Chance, the Ronnie Lane Remnants band, at the Half Moon in Putney, where I first twigged that Rob and Jacqui were a serious couple....

King King, a terrific tartan-kilted Scottish rock band who played the Boom Boom Club at Sutton FC - but on that occasion Rob only managed the first set 'cos he claimed he had "an urgent appointment at The Hope"...

The Creole Choir of Cuba at Croydon's beautiful Braithwaite Hall...

Pinise Saul, the South African jazz diva, at the excellent co-operatively-run Ivy House in Nunhead...

The Carolina Chocolate Drops at the Union Chapel. Rob failed to show up at the designated pre-gig boozer and when I finally got him on the phone he had to admit he'd clean forgotten about it. But he still made it just in time for the second set....

Then a lovely pre-Xmas evening at his beloved Carshalton Athletic FC with a forties-style swing band, La Mouche. 

And a fine gig in the wilds of Hinchley Wood with Croydon legend Wizz Jones - where we had to make a lightning exit in order for Rob to rush us through a series of back alleys to catch the last train home...

Then finally, and so sadly, barely two years ago, a special concert at the rather swish Kings Place where we saw the brilliant retro-rock band Bennett, Wilson and Poole.  Rob was hoping to meet up after the gig with Danny Wilson, an ex-pupil who has definitely made good, but instead we ended up in a very convivial nearby bar, where Rob was virtually propositioned by a very attractive young lady less than half his age. Rob extricated himself most gallantly by explaining that unfortunately he had a prior engagement in Carshalton Beeches...

Such fun times.

 Danny Wilson - aka Danny and the Champions of the World - is the one in the middle with the specs. 

Going out and about with Rob was always a treat - and an education, especially where beer was concerned. Rob's knowledge of ales, breweries, pub architecture, and pub traditions was encyclopaedic and watching him at the bar was quite something. First he had that annoying bar-fly's ability to catch the bartender's eye and get himself served ahead of anyone else, and then, no matter how many other thirsty punters were waiting, he would insist on sampling any ales with which he was unfamiliar before making his considered choice. His opinions were always forthright - I remember once buying him a pint and asking for his feed-back:  "Undiluted gnat's piss" was his only withering comment.  Of course he channelled all that wealth of knowledge and enthusiasm into his six excellent and very successful Camra Pub Walks Guides - some now quite scarce - and into his campaign to preserve classic pub interiors and original features, itself an off-shoot of his broader support for the SPAB and other conservation groups. 

As an activist Rob was just indefatigable - goodness knows how many elections, demonstrations, conferences, actions, petitions and campaigns he was involved with over the years. In political argument he was formidable and fearsome - tree-felling Labour councillors, perfidious Lib Dem MPs, and effing Tories, he gave them all both barrels, usually with colourful expletives attached. But he could sometimes surprise, as when he would praise some of the Big Beasts of the political past like Bevan, Foot and Benn - but also rather more controversially, Denis Healey, Edward Heath and even Enoch Powell...  And he had rather "interesting" views about some major world events like the Kennedy Assassination and 9/11.

Knowing that Rob was an experienced and by all accounts charismatic teacher, it was a rare treat to see him in proper lecturer-mode when he and Derek launched their superb River Wandle Companion and Trail Guide in 2012  His presentation was a model of clarity and enthusiasm, and it was easy to appreciate what a positive influence he must have been on generations of geography students. And no doubt he charmed the pupils of Cheltenham Ladies College out of the trees...   When he told me he intended to self-publish the book, I was a bit concerned the end-product might not be quite up to standard and I remember trying to give him a bit of advice about copyright, barcodes and ISBN numbers. I shouldn't have worried. As with everything Rob did, the result was a thoroughly professional, meticulously researched and most attractive book which has really become the standard work on the mighty Wandle. 

Rob always was a wonderful and generous host. His famous Friday evening open-house sessions at Palmerston Road and Tower Cottage were such friendly and fun occasions, and I really wish I'd made it along more often. With the kitchen awash with beers of every style and type, an enormous slab of cheese and acres of French bread, an open fire (at Palmerston anyway) and great music playing - The Who, of course, The Clash or The Levellers - but also, especially when he got hold of a Dansette record player, old 45s by The Hollies, Stevie Wonder and Otis Redding. And he was always so thoughtful too - I paid a flying visit to him and Jacqui at their lovely place in Downton a few years ago and had to rush off to catch the last Isle of Wight ferry. Halfway across the Solent I got a call from Rob concerned that I might have missed it and assuring me of a bed back at their place if I had. 

Good memories too of renting his lovely Belper cottage on a couple of occasions and spending time exploring the Peak District which I think may well have been Rob's favourite part of the country. The cottage had the unique distinction of having a fancy bidet in the enormous bathroom - and a thunderbox in a shed at the bottom of the garden....

I was under instruction from Rob to keep a look-out for books by Edward Ardizzone, who had illustrated a couple of books on pub traditions back in the 1930s. Rob was keen to collect any he could find and I think he was rather pleased when I found him copies of Huckleberry Finn and Tom Sawyer in rather nice old school editions published by Heinemann. 

                        Illustration from "The Local" by Edward Ardizzone and Maurice Gorham, published in 1938.

It was just brilliant when Rob and Jacqui got together. I think he was almost as surprised as all his friends were. The wedding reception at Carshalton Water Tower in 2014 was a lovely occasion and I'd never seen Rob looking so relaxed and happy. Typically he had swiftly shed any formal attire he'd been persuaded to wear for the actual ceremony and arrived at the party in baggy shorts and a frayed granddad vest.  It was great that he and Jacqui had so many interests in common and that they had those happy years together with many projects and shared holidays - before the tragic events of his last months. It's impossible to imagine what Jacqui has been through.

True to form, I think the very last time I saw Rob was when he was beavering away behind the Green Party tea-stall at the Carshalton Environmental Fair on a ferociously hot day in August 2019. 

Rob packed more into his sixty-something years than probably ten average people would manage in their life-times. So many aspects of his multi-faceted life - like his chess-playing prowess - that many of us were barely aware of. He was such a dynamo of enthusiasm, ideas, and passionate activism. A lovely charming man with a gift for making friends and a talent for getting things done. With his impish grin and his quizzical chin-stroking, he seemed to enjoy life with real relish and gusto.  I think Kerouac would have counted him amongst "the mad ones, the ones who are mad to live, mad to talk, mad to be saved, desirous of everything at the same time, the ones who never yawn or say a commonplace thing, but burn, burn, burn like fabulous yellow roman candles exploding like spiders across the stars..."

We miss him. 

Steve Archer. 

The Scales brothers share their thoughts about Bob

Rob Scales writes

I met Bob for the first time in 1979 at Wallington Boys' Grammar School (as it was then) where he taught geography and I taught English. The school's priorities were academic, but it tried hard to engage the boys' extra-curricular interests and skills. Bob looked after the chess team (he had represented  Southampton University at chess), and helped the school develop hockey, with surprising success, given how little he'd played himself.

He was never happier than when leading groups of boys to walk in places that he loved. (Not that the results were always instantaneous; he recalled one youth, after a brisk turn across the Pennines, standing in front of a mirror and saying 'Oh shit; I'm still fat.')

Bob was too energetic to be fat. In due course he became a democratic Head of Department. Various of his underlings  became personal friends. He played his part in the life of the Common Room, knocking in goals for the Staff football team. Somehow while teaching a full timetable, he found time to stand as Green Party candidate in, I think, both local and national elections.

But he was always, by his own admission, a man somewhat apart. He  could not at once live a teacher's life and be all the different things he wanted to be, and he sought a way out. In about 1987, I led him, and various other Wallington staff on a beer trip to the West Midlands. In years that followed, he led loads of such trips; to Manchester, Liverpool, Yorkshire, Norwich, Kent, Sussex, the Potteries, Glasgow, Edinburgh, the North-East, Bristol, Hampshire, Amsterdam, Lille, Antwerp and Ghent, all wonderfully researched, and where possible, with beautiful walks. These attracted the interest of CAMRA, and he persuaded them to commission a series of books of beer walks, all very clear, concise and beautifully illustrated with photos he took himself. The choice of pubs and routes was always, as he would have put it, 'pukka'. My twin and I helped him on some of his research trips. These books were updated as beer geography is constantly changing.

While CAMRA warmly encouraged this project, he was paid little to research, it being hoped he might make some money from book sales. To keep himself solvent he founded AleTrails, a firm which organised beer walks, personally led. This firm attracted steady interest from various parts of Europe, and particularly the United States. The out-of-town trips he led himself, but he often subcontracted the trips in London to my twin or myself. Though they were based as ever on his impeccable research, I have vivid recollections of such trips. We all had so much fun I had to pinch myself so that I could remember I was doing it for a job and being paid for it. And Bob made it possible. It was very sad when it became one more spinning plate than he could keep in the air.

By this time, though, he was writing the definitive historical and geographical guide to the Wandle, with the naturalist Dr Derek Coleman. To keep solvent he was doing short-term teaching contracts at schools like UCS, Fettes and Cheltenham College. He was also helping his father through the latter's long terminal decline.

He was political to the end, giving active support to Extinction Rebellion. We had little in common in politics, and had many lively differences on the subject, but the purpose of his politics was never personal, always the betterment - as he saw it - of the world. If one asked him to justify his position on an issue, local or general, he would always do this on the basis of convincing current research, as long as the issue was geographical. He never took the step of barring from discussion or friendship those who were off his message; he was too much of a scholar for that. And he had the tact to know when to change the subject to the many things we had in common.

The local was paramount to Bob, sometimes almost claustrophobically so. He chose to centre his life, while I knew him, on the streets of the St Helier estate, where I think he was born. Discussing transport strikes, he sometimes seemed not to see why it was important for people to be able to move from one place to another. For him, bike was always an option. At the heart of his locality was his local, the Hope in Carshalton, and if you drank with him there, you had to share him with everyone else in the pub, always a lot, who had business with him. He volunteered whenever asked, however menial the job.

Though he self-consciously foreswore any trappings of distinction, yet distinguished was what he was. You could not mention the smallest settlement in England or Scotland but he was familiar with it, and knew what its pub was like.

He was good company and a loyal friend. He will be enormously missed.

Rob Scales

Anthony adds

It is worth recording that he invented the “Bob Steel Rip-off Measure”. This was a calibrated thing like a ruler made either out of wood or folded paper. If you were not served a full pint, you could place the measure against the glass and quickly work out, depending on the price of the pint, the exact value of the beer you were being deprived of. I have seen him use it and shame bar staff in pubs many times.

My brother and I were thinking of anecdotes about Bob, but in spite of his campaigning lifestyle he was in many circumstances quiet and polite. I remember the last time I went to Belgium with him we boarded the Eurostar, found ourselves sitting opposite a respectable couple even older than us. Offering to put their bags in the luggage rack, I found the space to be partly taken up by some mystery object. I showed it to Bob. 'What's that?' he asked. 'Looks like a willy-warmer to me,' I said, and asked the couple 'Is this willy warmer part of your luggage?' Bob just looked as if he didn't want to be there.

I also remember an amazing walk through a high part of Derbyshire. Cloud or fog came down and visibility was literally something like 5 yards. It was something you don't often get in this country but Bob was completely oblivious as he was arguing with his mobile phone company about their contract, a call which must have lasted two hours.

I remember researching the real ale pubs of Edinburgh and Glasgow with him. I went to one pub and we were served some ghastly vinegary pint. It was clear that no Scotsman  there had touched a pint of it and it had just gone off in the pipes. When we got out, I said 'You can't put this pub in the Guide!' He said 'If nobody tries the beer there, it'll never get any better.' Whether it ended up in the Guide I don't know, but I know the real ale scene there is better than it was, so more people are at least trying it.

Lastly I remember that to celebrate his 50th birthday I wrote a poem about him and the fact he knew every village in the UK because he had camped, cycled or drunk there. I no longer have it or can remember a line of it, but I know he was very taken with it 

All the best,

Anthony Scales

Various thoughts…

Claire Martin contributes:

I think I knew Rob for over forty years. 

I met him through Graham, his school and life long friend. 

I was encouraged by Rob to join a socialist walking group and the Society for the Preservation of Ancient Buildings. I am now a life member of SPAB. I often met him on SPAB visits and he made every visit memorable. 

He took me to the pub that he was a shareholder of. 

He was unbelievably knowledgeable about geography, including his local geography, and of course real ale! 

I visited him in Cheltenham when he was teaching at Cheltenham Ladies College. 

We undertook countless visits to galleries, historic houses, and gardens. 

I also enjoyed many parties at his different gaffs as he called them. 

He had a brilliant mind and could take the government to pieces in the most amusing and informed way. 

He used to criticise my carbon footprint due to my love of travel and unbroken ownership of a car, which he called the limo. 

We once sang along at the tops of our voices to the Rolling Stones as we travelled through the Kent countryside in my limo! 

He enriched my life and amused me in equal measure. 

He was a remarkable and wonderful man. It was an absolute privilege to know him. I miss him greatly. Claire 

Karin Jashapara writes

Like all of us, I’m sure,  I’ve loved reading other people’s memories of Rob. They reveal more and more of his wide-ranging knowledge, interests and passions. Yes, it was good to know him, whichever him it happened to be!

When I arrived in Carshalton in the late ‘80s, my new home was fortunate, verdant, though the area felt suffocatingly conservative, dull and over-comfortable. But the local Green Party was unexpectedly lively – especially Rob, Graham, Sylvia, Richard and Gay, who were all determinedly different and each in their own way inspirational. Rob’s famous grin and sparkling eyes made it possible to listen to his views, often terribly articulate -  “we’re tearing up the fabric of nature” . I found his knowledge and conviction energising.

A few of us tried car-sharing and even washing-machine sharing, with limited success, but there was no way anybody was about to throw in the towel. It was obvious that everything was utterly pear-shaped (Thatcher was in power!) and a planet-friendly vision was essential.

As well as the usual meetings, fundraising, campaigns, elections, recycling, all made kind of bearable by the sheer liveliness and determination of the personalities I’ve mentioned, there was the dancing. A friend played double bass for The Forest Hillbillies, and for a time Gay, Rob and I went to their gigs, hopping around as if under a spell. At the Sun pub in Carshalton, Terra Folk got lots of us up on our feet  with their  gypsy tunes.  

Rob also enjoyed quests for fine ales with my partner, Ashok, and was kind to our daughters, giving them wonderfully quirky Christmas gifts, and was pleased of course to know that one of them was to take up Geography. Although we saw less of each other in the latter years, it was poignant to visit Tower Cottage after Rob had gone, remembering some great parties there, and to wander around his place, seeing in it his unusual and warm character. I‘m left with lots of good memories, and a book on the Transition Movement, an excellent gift he once for some reason gave me, with which the work, of necessity, in its own way, continues.

Old school and University friend Dave Fryer says

Having known Bob since 1966 from School and University and kept in contact all the years since, it was a real shock to lose him so soon.

 As a schoolkid I used to visit his parents house in Carshalton and go on from there to watch his beloved Robins especially if Carshalton Athletic were playing my team Redhill

 At University he could, of course, be very annoying especially if he was in a group wanting to go out for a drink as he would insist on leading us to some spit and sawdust pub because it served a good pint of Gales ale.

 Bob as well as playing for the Southampton University Chess Team was also a member of the Wallington & Carshalton Chess Club and obtained a very decent playing strength of about 170 ECF grade – for the uninitiated that is County strength.

He stopped playing seriously many years ago however this did not stop him from challenging and beating me in a correspondence game in April 2020. A link to the game is https://lichess.org/tYIHwyNUATUu

Goodbye Bob RIP 

Three of Rob’s pupils reminisce

Wallington High School for boys- showing evidence of Robs presence there on the roof

 From Stephen Dow

‘Rob Steel taught geography while I was at Wallington High School for Boys although he was not my teacher.  My teacher was very formal and distant.  His lessons consisted of rules, fountain pens, dictation, and the threat of a rap across the knuckles.  I thought little of geography as a subject, and assumed that all geography teachers were like that.  So I was surprised when I first came across Rob Steel.

 At the age of 15 or so, I went on an overnight field trip organised by Rob to learn about coastal erosion.  I was more interested in a jolly with my friends than the subject matter.  However, I remember being really taken by his energy and passion when teaching us about the environment.  It was infectious - I wanted to learn more about the world around me when he was speaking.  What a contrast to the other geography teacher who had taught me until then.

 I remember late in the evening before lights out a few of us had opened some beers that someone had brought along.  We knew that we would be in trouble if we were caught, and this was part of the fun.  At this point Rob walked in.  However, rather than giving us a talking to, he asked if he could have one and proceeded to talk to us about how we were getting on.  To my memory, this was the first time I felt a teacher had talked to me as an adult.

 In his time as a teacher, his passion for the subject and ability to reach out and communicate with us as adults will have affected hundreds of students for the better.’. 

And from Graeme Dow

 ‘Rob was probably the most influential teacher I had at school, although if this was not reflected in my Geography grades, it was certainly reflected in my understanding of the world.  Apart from my second year at high school (where I had the pleasure of being terrified and bored in equal measure by Mr Dolby), Rob was my Geography teacher all the way through my time at Wallington High School For Boys.  I think his subject would have been more accurate to label Human Geography, with its emphasis on social and environmental issues.  Or maybe, Environmental/Social Politics for Beginners.  Yes, Rob seemed to me to be something of a Green Party activist disguised as a Geography teacher.  I still remember his blistering critique of the Trickle Down economic theory which, in 1987, was going against the grain.  

Rob cared about what and who he was teaching, which was a refreshing experience.  He did not sound like or dress like any of our other teachers.  He implored us to think for ourselves.  He berated expensive trainers, or "pumps" as he called them, much to our amusement.  He was the only teacher who wore jackets with elbow patches.

He was an inspiring and idiosyncratic teacher and I am happy and honoured to have spent such a formative time with him.’.

and lastly: Colin Dow ….

‘So Bob was my geography teacher when I was a Pupil at Wallington Boys.

As my parents already knew him from the Green Party (I think), he would always look out for me as fellow kin.

To me though, as a kid, he seemed to be a cool guy in the way he wasn’t afraid to be an individual who stood up for his own morals and was cool in being outspoken.

Although he taught geography that didn’t mean he was only interested in rivers and hills, but he would talk of politics and the economy of Africa and the effects of the rapacious western economic policies which made you, as a youngster, think critically and independently which was a good example to a youth and which made him, in turn, a role model which was good.

All round, to me, he was a good bloke who stood firm in his beliefs and, in a way, such people don’t ever leave us but remain with us forever’.

And finally their father George Dow

This is a lovely idea to honour the memory of Rob and his remarkable life.

Here is my memory …

Rob was such an important character in, not only my own life, but the lives of all members of my family. I think I first came across his name in the early eighties on an Ecology Party leaflet, probably in connection with local elections or the general election around that time. I was events secretary for Sutton CND and would come across him at some meetings and demos. He was always such an enthusiastic and committed activist. And a great support when I stood for the Greens in 2010.

 And then there was Rob the teacher, who taught Geography to all three of our sons throughout the late eighties and early nineties. They all considered him to be  fine teacher. And throughout his life whenever we met, he would always ask how each of them were doing. He cared so much for his former students.

 And finally, there was Rob my friend. Always there to help, whether it was in erecting a polytunnel on our allotment or leaving us the keys to his house where we stayed during a gap between moving house from Hackbridge to Penzance. Jacqueline and I were so happy that he and Jacqui had got together as a couple. They were so well matched – and it was a real joy to have them stay with us for a few days during a Cornish visit two years ago.

 It was such a privilege to know him. Inspiring, kind and committed to making this world a better place.

 George

Tansy Honey’s contribution

How difficult it is to describe the memory of a person.  His character and spirit - I can remember as if he were still here, but how to put it into words…

 I knew Rob, not well, but since the 1990s through my work and volunteering at EcoLocal in Carshalton. He was intrinsically part of our community; a part of Carshalton ‘village’ and of the local environmental community. I can visualise Rob now, saying hello with a big grin and, as somebody else said ‘a twinkle in his eye’- that’s so true. He always seemed to thoroughly enjoy meeting and talking with people. I remember him at The Hope Pub, parties at his Tower Cottage, at the Environmental Fair – relaxed and happy – delighted with the world. Though of course he railed against the politics he deplored and against local policies he disagreed with. But he didn’t just moan about the things he disagreed with, he got involved – in the Green Party, the Carshalton Society, and various local environmental forums. I’m not sure how many allotments he had, was it 2 or 3? It’s hard enough to maintain one! He taught one of our organic food growing courses at one time. (see the picture on the home page)  His untimely passing is a great loss indeed, but his legacy, or rather one of his legacies, is that he helped make our community what it is today.

 Tansy Honey

Rob remembered by Derek

I first met Bob when we played chess at school; Bob played for John Fisher and I for Whitgift, we only played once and Bob won.  In 1979, we met again at Wallington and Carshalton Chess Club where Bob was already a member of the first team and I came to work in the area.

Bob was very welcoming, I knew few people having come to a new area to work, inviting me to join him with friends at the Sun.  Our friendship grew and we hatched a plan to cycle from Land’s End to John o’ Groats. In August 1986, we set off with James Dean. It took us 16 days and it was an amazing trip with constantly changing scenery. On the whole, the weather was pretty good but I can remember two very wet days, we arrived at a pub for lunch and were presented with towels!  We did not book ahead since we never knew how far we would travel each day. I had the only puncture and James broke a spoke but Bob had no mechanical issues. My puncture was at Tain on the east coast of Scotland, north of Inverness. Tain was the largest village in the area and we planned to stay there overnight so while I mended my puncture, Bob and James scoured the village for accommodation with no success. It was now about 9pm and we decided to set off and head for the next village but then the good Samaritan, who I had been talking to earlier in the evening, came back and offered us beds for the night!

The army base (including The Puff Inn) on St Kilda -

After that trip, we went on many trips, many to his beloved Peak District and Scotland. We visited St Kilda in August 1987 with a group of mountaineers, who wanted help to cover the cost of hiring a boat. We lived in tents and had to take all our food for the week. The boat trip took 24 hours and on the way most of us were sea-sick. We arrived in glorious sunshine with the sea calm but still with a heavy swell, it was surreal still being sick as we passed the outlying stacks with thousands of nesting gannets. The first day, we enjoyed amazing weather and decided to leave some of the island for the remaining days, which was a big mistake, since for the rest of the week, there were a series of storms and we did not venture further than Village Bay, home of the St Kildans before they were evacuated.  We had not expected a pub, the Puff Inn, on the island but due to the presence of the army there was one. It was most welcome since it enabled us to eke out our food supplies with a beer and pie for £1. The only problem was that Bob was refused entry because he was wearing his CND badge so reluctantly had to remove it.

We often went away at Easter and undoubtedly the most memorable trip, which we talked about for years afterwards, was to the Ben Nevis area in 1988. That winter had seen a good snow fall and the hills were at their best enhanced by amazing weather, every day there was not a cloud to be seen, little wind and warm. You may remember the photo on his wall of Bob walking up a steep snow covered slope with a sea loch in the background that was from this trip. On all our Easter trips, we went up together but always returned alone, not because we had an altercation but because Bob left to attend the spring conference of the Green Party.

The Easter trip in 1991 was to cycle the Bealach na Ba, a winding single track road across the Applecross peninsula in the Scottish Highlands. It is one of the great cycling challenges that this country has to offer starting at sea level and rising to 2,050 feet in around five miles. We were apprehensive whether we would reach the top without resorting to walking but in the end it was easier than both of us imagined, however, that did not stop us celebrating with a bottle of London Pride at the top.

These Scottish trips led to us both developing a taste for single malt whisky. We would buy different malts and have tasting sessions when there was something to celebrate. We both enjoyed the peaty whiskies from Islay with Laphroig being a particular favourite.

There were a few overseas trips. A trip to the Picos de Europas in Spain in May 1992 was the only one we took our bicycles. There was a walking trip to the Stubai Alps in Austria in August 1995. We walked from hut to hut enjoying amazing scenery. Towards the end, there was an unseasonal snow fall and we could hear loud cracks that were avalanches setting off; that evening we were told in no uncertain terms that we must descend for our own safety. The next was to Mont Blanc in ????. We were a small party of seven, including several from my workplace, the Institute of Cancer Research. There were two huts on our route where we spent the night that were extremely crowded. You could not book in advance and they could hardly turn you away; four of us had to sleep on a double-bed! Sleep was not really the word since with the altitude none of us managed much. Bob and most of the others suffered badly from the altitude. Only Mike Ormerod, who was the oldest in our party, and I, managed to reach the top with the final stretch being along an arête where we roped up with another couple of Brits and if anyone fell then the person behind had to jump down the other side. Fortunately, it did not come to that but passing people going the other way was scary. The most memorable day on the trip was not on Mont Blanc but walking up the Mer de Glace, the largest glacier in France, with clear blue streams running through it sometimes exposed at other times beneath the ice. We had to walk much further than intended when trying to find somewhere to cross one of the streams. It was late in the day when we approached the hut we had planned to spend the night only to find boulders were hurtling down the mountainside. We had to abort and walk several miles to the next nearest hut. As we entered, we heard the radio calling all the huts in the area asking whether two Brits had arrived.

Bob made several other overseas trips, including to Norway with Jo Moran and organised trips to the Himalayas and mountain biking in the Atlas mountains in Morocco. 

As well as cycling/walking trips, there were pub trips. In 1996, the Good Beer Guide published the first inventory of heritage pubs, that we called the 196 (the number of pubs listed).  There were several trips to tick off pubs on the list. In December 2007, we arrived in Dundee at 5am on a very cold morning when everything was closed and joined the homeless for the rest of the night. By the evening, we were in Edinburgh having ticked off the three listed pubs in Dundee before visiting more heritage pubs.  Bob visited more of the 196 than me and the only country in the United Kingdom where he visited them all was Northern Ireland, I have yet to go there. We both had favourites but both liked the unspoilt rural pubs: two that spring to mind were The Sun, near Ludlow and the Red Lion, near Cirencester. Neither pub had bars with the beer served direct from the barrel. The former was run by an elderly lady and the latter by an elderly gentleman, on their passing, the former was saved by the locals, a model for the Hope but the latter closed; I suspect that a lot more will close as a result of the coronavirus pandemic. 

Bob was always an avid real beer drinker, member of CAMRA but also had an interest in the architecture of building. The 196 enabled him to combine both interests and culminated in writing regional Pub Walks for CAMRA. The first was London in 2006, followed by Peak District (2008), Edinburgh (2010), South East (2012), Lake District and Yorkshire. They entailed a lot of research and drinking but were very popular with several being revised; the London walk is now on the third edition.

Drinking was a feature of life in Carshalton with the ‘go-to’ pub changing over the years. Bob’s drinking haunt when I first met him was with Dennis at The Sun. On Dennis’s retirement, there was Kevin and Bridget in The Railway, back to The Sun when it was run by three Irish brothers, the Windsor Castle run by John Stott and further afield to the Beer Circus in Croydon (not necessarily  in this order) and finally the Hope. All the pubs were chosen for their good beer and conviviality. They were not chosen for their smoke-free atmosphere; the smoke at the Beer Circus was particularly bad, looking back now, I do not know how we put up with it. Lock-ins were a feature at both The Railway and Sun; I remember Bridget announcing at mid-night either buy another drink or go home!

Another of Bob’s beer drinking exploits was the annual beer tour, which was open to any friend or friend of friend. It consisted of a few nights away with drinking sessions interspersed with walks. I only went on a few but Ant and Rob Scales were the stalwarts and I think they clocked up over twenty tours, including some on the continent.

The Rob Steel that I knew

By Neville Lane

The following collection of photos marks some of the times I have had with Rob. They bring back  some great memories for me. 

1978: The picture on the right is at Ullswater in the Lake District is of Rob, John, and Andy eating Kendal Mint Cake, which sustained us through our trip. I remember that we intended to do a mixture of camping and bed and breakfasting. The first night we pitched  our tent, but I was surprised to find that the others had got out while I slept, owing to the fact that the ground – and our bedding - was soaking. We spent the rest of the time in B&Bs/Youth Hostels.Rob’s navigational skills, which included finding the best places for a beer, were a feature of the holiday. 

On the left Rob taking his turn at the oars on Ullswater.

1979: The photo on the right was taken outside the house that I was renting a room in (in Coleridge  Avenue, Carshalton) just prior to setting off for a tour of southern Ireland with Rob and Graham. My  house almost backed on to the football ground at which I joined Rob for several of the Robins’ games. The photo to the left was in southern Ireland. The holiday was a mixture of several of the things that I came most to associate with Rob: cycling, landscape, beer and music. 

Rob on crutches in Dovedale and relaxing on a Greek beach

1980: Holiday in the Greek Islands. Those were the days when you could sleep on the beach (which we did) and leave your rucksack of belongings there if you went off for the day (which we also did). We spent most of our time on this holiday on the beaches, reading our books and just unwinding after a year’s teaching. I remember going across to Antiparos from Paros on a small boat, but not being able to come back on the day we had intended because the sea conditions were too rough. The boat-master just shrugged his shoulders and said that we would just have to wait until the sea calmed, which it did a couple of days later. We went to a few other of the Cyclades islands this year and the next, just relaxing and enjoying the sunshine during our school holidays. 

1981: I was teaching at Danes Hill, a boys’ prep school in Oxshott, while Rob was teaching at Wallington Boys’ Grammar. We arranged a couple of Easter holiday trips together, taking about 15-20 boys between us, first to the Peak District and then to the Lakes. On the day before we were to set off for the Peak District Rob broke his foot, however, he determinedly decided to go ahead with the trip. I really don’t know how he managed to cover the distance, but somehow he did. 

1984: Rob was my best man when I married Jane in Kenfig, South Wales, in September 1984. The two of  us spent the night before the wedding in a small B&B in Porthcawl. I remember that Rob was very disappointed indeed about the paucity of drinking holes in the town. On the morning of the wedding  we did have a bit of a panic because Rob couldn’t find his underpants, but the wedding itself went  smoothly enough though.

1999: Here is a photo of Rob on a visit to Devon, on a cycle ride with Jane, Richard and Emily, and  afterwards against our garden wall. He had a great way with our children, always being at ease with  them and making them smile:

2012: Rob’s house – Tower Cottage in Carshalton – seemed to typify him and I loved to visit. Here he  is outside the conservatory: 

2014: Here are a couple of photos of Rob’s wedding party and one of Rob in the kitchen at Tower  Cottage the next morning. The top photo shows Rob and Jacqui, then Rob with Paul, me, Patsy and John. The bottom  photo shows the brothers Scales who put on a splendid vocal performance as always.

2016: Jane and I stayed with Rob and Jacqui in Downton one night. We were very impressed with  the work that they had done on the garden at Headlands House in particular. This photo of Rob and  Jacqui was taken on the route of what should have been a public footpath, which Rob was very  annoyed to find had not been kept clear: 

2017: Here is Rob with Patrick and Graham at Headlands House during one of Graham’s visits from  America:

Shasha’s Blog Bob Steel - RIP

Carshalton Environmental Fair 2012 and Bob and me

It seems that every other post seems to be a memorial to a local member passing. And so, it is with great sadness I do this again and write about the death of Bob Steel. 

Bob, also known as Rob, was the former Chair of Sutton and Croydon Green Green Party.

He died in mid-August at his home in Wiltshire. Local members last month planned to meet for a socially distanced walk on 22nd November (today) to remember him. However, owing to the new lockdown, this has not been possible.

It seems appropriate to write about him today.

The photo in the post was taken at the Carshalton Environmental Fair. I've got my first child in a baby carrier. Bob once said to me that having children marks the end of activism. He was right! Since 2012, I haven't been as active!! 

Bob had a number of convictions, STEELISMS, if you will, that were founded on life experiences and knowledge. I will try and remember some of them here because they were all pretty accurate.

When I joined the Green Party in 2002, there was no active Croydon party. Instead it was conjoined to the Sutton Green Party. I think the first voice I heard when joining the Green Party was Bob Steel's landline answerphone message. The greeting listed organisations he was Chair/Organiser. From memory, these were the regional CAMRA group, a walking group, as well as the local Green Party. He had his finger in many inter-connected pies.

He had written books on real ale pubs and pub walks. This was before real ale had become the essential hipster refreshment. He knew his real ale. It was through his influence I ventured from Heineken to Hophead. I remember mentioning to Bob I had bought a few cans of Tangle Foot - my gateway ale. He wasn't impressed and pointed out that it would be good for the slugs. Whatever knowledge deficiencies I possessed on beers was easily surpassed by the subject of gardening.  His comment just went over my head!

On one occasion, we went for lunch in Brighton during Green Party conference. I remember wandering the streets with Bob for while in order for him to find the ideal pub. He pretty much knew every CAMRA pub in the country. I think it might have been my first Green Party conference. It was new and exciting for me, but for Bob it was almost the polar opposite. I remember him trying to get across to me what Green Party conferences were like in the 80s. Imagine enlightened people from all over the country coming together to discuss a new ideology. "Green Party conferences are just not the same [STEELISM]". 

Bob was a fast walker - which is useful if you like pub walks. In 2004 I won the selection process to become the GLA candidate for Croydon and Sutton. I remember him encouraging me to put my name forward when I asked him for his thoughts about standing. He came over from Carshalton to leaflet in my campaigns in Croydon on a number of occasions, usually cycling over or borrowing Gay's car. On one particular morning it was freezing cold but the sun was out. It was just about bearable for me. I assumed everyone preferred hot weather, but not Bob. He was in his element. He was not a big fan of warm weather. "The best weather is cold and sunny [STEELISM]."

When not talking about Green Party stuff, we could easily be sidetracked by football, especially non-league football. He was a well known Carshalton Athletic fan. From about 2006 onwards I had started watching Croydon Athletic so there was some crossover. He loved Carshalton Athletic. He loved the rivalry with Sutton United who he referred to as the Scummers. Croydon were always at least one division below Carshalton but then for one season, Croydon benefitted from a "Sugar Daddy" [STEELISM] - a wealthy benefactor - and The Rams caught up with The Robins, which meant for once, and for only once, we were at the same match. By then Carshalton had invested in an artificial pitch, something Bob was dead set against - not a surprise given he was a purist when it came to football. I've spotted that The Robins are aware of his passing.

Bob was an excellent chess player as well. I play too. Sadly, the opportunity to play each other was limited again to one occasion. For my 40th birthday I hosted a chess tournament for my friends. Weird I know. A couple of genuine chess players couldn't make it, including Bob, so I organised another tournament a few months later. Bob thrashed us all.

I think Bob played one of the top boards at Southampton University when he was a student. He once mentioned winning a crucial match with a pretty combination of moves that resulted in his university team winning the Southampton League. I remember observing to him that chess players tended to vote Green. It was an idea that had not escaped him, "Chess players are like Green voters, they think things through. [STEELISM]"

By the time I had joined the Green Party, Bob had already done many years of hard service, including targeting Carshalton Central ward. In my early years, I was bright eyed and bushy tailed. I believed it was possible for Greens to win council seats under the first past the post system in Croydon and Sutton, and couldn't understand why Bob - the Chair - didn't feel as enthusiastic as I did. It was only after doing my years of hard service do I appreciate one of Bob's other STEELISMs, "Slow down Shasha, you're in this for the long haul." Greens can get elected under the first past the post but one has to bust a gut to do it, but then many bust a gut and don't make it. Through hindsight it may be better to play for the long haul.

Sadly, Bob's haul has been cut short. He has touched the lives of many people, including me. He was always there whenever I needed advice, be it on the wording of a letter, a press release, or even electoral strategy. A man of great intellect has left us, may he rest in peace.

Bob is survived by his wife Jacqui and stepdaughter Lucie.

Shasha Khan at 10:25 pm

Robs Burial 10th September 2020 at Brookwood Cemetary

Rob is buried in the grounds of the Saint Edward Orthodox Christian monastry in Brookwood, the place he and Jacqui were married.

Robs grave is a simple one, he was buried in a woven willow coffin.

The poem Rob asked to be read over his grave, it was also one of his fathers favourites.

Rob & Sutton Green Party

Rob joined the Sutton Ecology Party, as the Green Party was called at the time, around 1978, as a young local Geography teacher in his late twenties.  As ever, the party comprised a small number of dedicated and far-sighted individuals who had a wide and lasting influence in the local community.  Amongst the number was a Quaker man in his 70s called Richard Allen whom Rob greatly admired for his clarity of thinking and dynamism.  Rob himself threw himself into his new-found political party immediately and stood for election for both the borough council and for parliament as soon as the opportunities arose.  As a result of the local Ecology Party campaigning for the 1983 General Election, there was an upsurge in membership in the area and I was present at a stimulating meeting of about 30 people in the upstairs room at the Sun pub, Carshalton, where we met Rob and many others who were to become ardent members of this still minor political party.  

Rob was a key figure in the party at the time. He had endless energy to put his increasing understanding of environmental politics into action in the fledgling political party.  One lasting amusing memory was the regular waste newspaper collection which the local group carried out every 2 weeks around a set of a few streets in Wallington.  It involved a leaflet drop a couple of days prior to the collection, two people to drive up to Dulwich to pick up the “Eco Van”, about the size of an old Post Office van, and whoever was available to go round on foot picking up the piles of papers left on doorsteps for us and chucking them in the van.  A brave volunteer would get up at 6 the next morning to drive this ramshackle van to a recycling site in Croydon and hopefully receive about £30 for it after it had been weighed.  They would then have to drive the van back to its home in Dulwich.  As this was before the days of any paper recycling by the council, this was quite a revolutionary action on our part – fulfilling our environmental concerns, as well as bringing us some well-needed cash for our funds.  Rob always worked flat out at this, but his enthusiasm persuaded many of us to join in the mad venture! Some of the stalwarts at this time were Graham Garner, James Dean (not an actor!), George Dow and Nick Greaves, whose mammoth ancient photocopier churned out endless party newsletters, along with the ones that would inevitably catch fire in the process! (Remember all those envelopes and stamps too?)

The Council Elections rolled by over the years, with the local Liberal Democrats gaining an ever stronger hold on the local council and claiming to be the greenest London council (they had now started their own newspaper recycling!).  This was welcomed by some local environmentalists and members of Friends of the Earth, including those working for the fledgling Centre for Environmental Initiatives, set up by Vera Elliott and later to be called Ecolocal, but Rob kept the Ecology Party members well informed, so that we consistently challenged the Lib Dem environmental claims. He delighted in quoting the considerable number of examples of anti-environment and contradictory actions and policies by various Lib Dem authorities, as well as by the almost permanent Lib Dem MP in Carshalton and Wallington, Tom Brake.  However, even Rob struggled to convince some of our members, like Phil Mouncey!

Among the party members by this time were the charismatic Silvia Scaffardi (co-founder of NCCL, now Liberty), Peter and Josie Hickson, Karin Andrews and Sue Riddlestone, Director of the new local organisation, Bioregional. At one of the local meetings we had a persuasive speaker from the Vegan Society, which prompted at least Jim Duffy to switch to a vegan lifestyle, now so common with environmentalists. Neil Hornsby brought his civil servant expertise and successfully persuaded London Transport to adopt his idea of “jogging tickets” for commuters under another name. Heather Jarrett and her partner Bruce gave stalwart service locally, and by now some of Rob’s ex-students from Wallington Boys School were joining the cause, as did Simon Dixon, proof that Rob had been spreading his views in the classroom!

And all the while, Thatcher and her successors would come back into power at every General Election and there would be wailing and gnashing of teeth amongst our little party (as well as amongst many others of course!) and Rob would sift through the details of the Green Party results here and all around the country, declaring that there was no hope for this country and we should all go round to his house and have lots of ale!

During the mid 90s we had a young television journalist by the name of John Cornford join us.  His experience and skills with the media of the time were a great boost to the local party, as exemplified by our campaign against a British Rail tree cutting extravaganza in Carshalton.  John and Rob led some of the party to trespass peacefully onto the railway line from a garden in Denmark Road and most importantly got the London television news reporters to film the event and interview John and Rob for us to proudly watch at home that night!

By the turn of the millennium the Sutton Party was reaching out to Croydon Green Party members who had no active party, and we attracted a small but powerful core of members, including Bernice Golberg, Shasha Khan and Martin Stamp (the latter of mass leafletting fame!), who went on to get the Croydon Party properly established. While there were a lot of separate issues for the Croydon and Sutton Parties, we were soon collaborating again, because our councils, together with Merton and Kingston, had announced in 2008 that they were forming a waste partnership.  “No, they weren’t going to build an incinerator; they were going to consider various options, one of which may be a pyrolysis waste processor”, we were told.  The rest of the story is more or less history, as the saying goes.  Rob managed to play an active part in the anti-incinerator campaign, in spite of taking on some long term supply teaching posts in various parts of the country.  He worked with Dr Stan Prokof, who first informed us of the issue, with his own ex-student Peter Alfrey who had specialist knowledge of birds and the ecology of the Beddington Farmlands and with several others of our own highly motivated party members.  Rob, as ever, threw himself into writing well researched and detailed submissions for the Green Party against the council planning application.

When Rob got married and moved to his new home in Wiltshire about 6 years ago, it was a dramatic change for the local Green Party.  He had been so central to its functioning for almost 40 years!  By keeping on his quirky Tower Cottage in Carshalton and lured back by his longstanding connections to The Hope real ale pub, as well as with the aid of IT and electronic communication, Rob managed to keep up to a certain extent with the activities of the local party.  Any good organisation tries not to get into a situation where any of their members become indispensable, and both Sutton and Croydon parties are continually moving forward with new blood, but that does not deny the absolutely vital part he played in the party for all those years and the huge gap he now leaves.  Whether we knew Rob since his early days in the party or just met him more recently on a brief visit back to the area, or some time in between, our parties collectively mourn the sad, sad loss of such a dynamic and inspirational party member. 

By Gay McDonagh, September 2020

Bob Steel: The author and his Books

Rob was busy writing a novel when I first met him. Set in a Scottish tenement and owing much to Dostoyevsky if I recall correctly - it was sadly never finished.

What he did go on to do, was write many books for CAMRA on Beer walks around Britain  and then self published his excellent River Wandle Companion with his good friend Derek Coleman

 "Paperback and hardback copies are available from Steve Archer. 

Paperbacks £15 each including postage (or £25 for two).  Hardbacks £20 each (or £30 for two). 

Proceeds are being distributed in Rob/Bob's name to a variety of Wandle charities.

To order please contact Steve by email:  stevearcher2000@yahoo.co.uk.

Bulk stocks may still be available via Derek Coleman [derekcoleman at hotmail.co.uk] if anyone is able to place a quantity of books perhaps in a local bookshop, café or similar outlet"

 Read a review of the book at the Londonist

While I think all of Rob's CAMRA books are technically out of print, there are secondhand copies of most of them available online.  This link should find most of them: Bob's CAMRA guides 

Caveat Emptor, however, as some of the editions may be out-of-date and not all the suppliers may be 100% reliable.....