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.
