Caroline Roberts and Jake

February 2, 2016

Bob: A Bit of Old History (as told to me by Bob) + Some Random Fragments of Personal Recollections 25.01.2016

Bob’s birthday 22 January 2014. Photo – thanks Rachel

Bob was born in a little red-brick terraced house behind the fire station in Rathmines, Dublin. He showed it to me once, a long time ago, with an obvious sense of pride. It was less than a quarter mile from where I went to school and less than a mile from where I grew up. I’d known the fire station well. Beside it was a toy and sweet shop where my father would occasionally stop to buy us kids some marshmallow mice. I would linger there, pressing my nose against the shop window daydreaming of the colourful treasures it held. Little did I know, as I bit the head off a pink mouse, that mere yards behind that cold glass an incomparably colourful child had been born who was destined to have such profound effects on my life.

At the end of the war, Bob’s Mum and Dad, Kath and Dick (Kathleen and Richard) took the infant Bob and moved to England in search of a better life. Times were hard and for a long while they lived in a Nissen Hut before moving to Nuneaton. The family grew and eventually there were four brothers, Bob, Kelly and the twins, John and Frank. Money was tight but it was a happy home guided by strong family values, driven principally by a strong Irish mother.

Bob, however, was a somewhat strange child, gifted with a precocious intelligence and a formidable pair of ears. In the age of the birth of pop music, rather play outside or listen to pop on the radio in the kitchen, he preferred to spend time listening to classical music with Dick in the front room of their little council house. This early experience of classical music later expanded into a deep love and understanding of music of almost every genre. He even loved Abba! “Production values”, he would exclaim.

As an aside, Frank and John do a howler of a double act about growing up with Bob, he being the apple of his parents’ eyes, they contend. I do hope they will repeat it. But be warned if they do: you’ll need your incontinence pads.

Bob gained a scholarship to the local grammar school where he excelled. And then it was on to Sussex University to study history. There he met fellow students who would become lifelong friends.

After university Bob joined the BBC as a young director on Late Night Line-Up. This was a ground- breaking series at the time, allowing young directors carte blanche to do what they wanted. Bob, bursting with creativity, took full advantage. He was proudest of his film of Appleby Horse Fair – a documentary with no narration (apparently unheard of at the time) and stunning visuals set entirely to music. Again at the BBC, Bob collected more lifelong friends.

Eventually, in the heady, hazy days of peace and love, Bob left the BBC and took to travelling with friends. East they went to Asia in a camper van, taking photographs and filming. God only knows what else they got up to. Bob never tired of travelling and was looking forward to heading off to Thailand in February, followed by Cuba in March and then to west Cork in April to spend some time with Jake and me. He even talked, perhaps idly, about buying a place there and moving out of Suffolk.

I’m sad he never got to see our new/old farmhouse on the Mizen. I like to think he would have loved it, there being not only stunning landscapes, big skies (oh, how he loved big skies) and roaring seas, but also the best old pub on the planet just a few minutes away. I picture him there in the convivial atmosphere, deep in conversation with the locals, collecting more friends.

I met Bob in the long, hot summer of 1976, though my memory of our first encounter is quite different to his. He tells, used to tell, the story of falling in love with a wet bedraggled little Irish girl, in a black plastic mac, taking refuge from the rain in the Princess Alexandra pub on Portobello Road. My memory is of meeting an uber-charming, handsome, urbane man at a party in Colville Houses, where I lived, just off Portobello Road. Perhaps both can be true. Though I was tied up at the time, Bob loved the thrill of the chase more than anything and eventually I could not but succumb. I caved in. And so our journey began.

Bob introduced me, a fairly green young woman from a near third-world country (Ireland in the 70s), to his cool cosmopolitan counter-culture ways; to his love of sound, of music; to adventure – we travelled through most of Europe, and to America twice; to his interest in photography, film and love of film-making – he taught me to edit film on a Steinbeck and set me to synching up bloody golf balls for his many god-awfully tedious golf movies; and, of course, to London partying. As has already been said, and it’s true, Bob was a ‘one-man party machine’, and his flat in Clarendon Lodge was frequently a merry-go-round of late-night revellers.

But, Bob always had a serious side too and continued in the film business. I am proud to have worked as his sound assistant on his recording of The Marriage of Figaro by the English National Opera, for which he was nominated for a BAFTA in the Best Sound category. I take no credit for this recognition of his talent. I did only what I was told to do. He stationed me in the orchestra pit to ensure that the exact positions of his microphones were not inadvertently moved. The sound there blew my mind, even if it didn’t completely blow my head off.

So, for a couple of years we were an item, living, travelling and often working together. Eventually, our romantic relationship fizzled out. No. No it didn’t. It actually exploded in a purple haze of unbridled excess, and we went our separate ways. We were, however, destined to remain close friends for the rest of Bob’s life. To the end, through thick and thin, through the good times, the bad times and the in-between times, he never stopped looking out for me. Nor indeed, I for him. He always encouraged me, made me feel that I could actually do it, whatever it was. I’ll try to remember that when I doubt.

In 1982, Bob became godfather, strictly in the non-religious sense, to Jake. And so began an enduring and deep relationship between the two that lasted to the very last hours of Bob’s life. From the start, they were thrilled with each other’s company, Bob well able to engage in childish gibberish. Whilst trawling through boxes of old photographs today I came across an old postcard from Bob, addressed to Jakey Poo Poo!

I’ve also just been visually reminded of what a central figure Bob was in both of our lives, for all of Jake’s life so far, 33 years.

Here we are, Bob and me, in London, in France, in Italy, in the Pindus Mountains, in Crete, in Ireland, in America in the late 70s. Here is Bob and Jake in Clarendon Lodge, in Portland Road, in Ardpatrick on the west coast of Scotland, in the Lake District walking up Pike-O-Blisco when Jake was only 4, skiing in Chamonix and Meribel-Mottaret, sailing in St. Tropez, holidaying in Mallorca, in Scotland with Callum, with Callum in Sicily, in India (red dog days) when Jake was 14, in France with Robin and me in 1992, sailing again with Callum in the Caribbean, in all the houses Jake and I ever lived in, in nearly all the houses Bob ever lived in, Christmases spent together in the 70s, 80s, 90s, Noughties and whatever the last few years are called when we lived in the barn at The Cottage.

On and on it goes. 40 long years of it, all but evaporated in that moment when we heard the news.

And that’s just the photos. Then there are the unrecorded memories, even banal, half-forgotten, insignificant memories, popping into mind at the strangest of times. Just this morning whilst making breakfast and having no fresh tomatoes, we thought we’d have tinned plum tomatoes in honour of Bob, who loved them. Silly, but I guess that’s what grief can do to you. Next might be Brundish sausages with HP sauce. Or chilli with spaghetti. But today we toasted Bob with plum tomatoes.

Bob was a one-off in so many ways. Clichéd yes, but true.

He was extraordinarily generous to his friends, and financially supportive of them too. Bob would always rather lend you a grand than a fiver. I think he thought it was easier to get a grand back from you. He was right. He just hated lending you a quid. That could be too easily forgotten.

Over-talented, Bob was a raconteur extraordinaire, with a lively mind that had an opinion, frequently controversial, on every subject. He liked nothing more than lively debate, a good argument.

But, Bob was sometimes difficult and conflicted too (especially where women were concerned) and occasionally would put forward grossly anathematic ideas, and would then enjoy fomenting a bad argument, especially when the drink got the better of him. He could have a mouth like a septic tank at times and I, being difficult too and wont to have a mouth like a sewer when riled, would rise to the occasion. Inevitably, no matter what was said, all would be forgiven with a hug, sooner or later. And then forgotten. We understood each other at some fundamental level. It was the bloody Irish in us, Bob used to say.

Bob the ladies’ man: Bob used to say that he loved women. Indeed he did. All women, any woman, all the time. I’m sure he loved particular women at particular times. But, Bob was like a little kid in a sweet shop. He was deeply conflicted where women were concerned and I think that what Bob really loved was chasing women. No woman was out of bounds. It didn’t matter whether he’d known you for 40 years (old times sake) or 20 seconds (must photograph you), black or white, where you were from, what language you spoke or didn’t speak, married, single, or even the status of his own current relationship. Charm was the arrow he hunted with. It was well honed and he rarely, if ever, put it back in its quiver. It is to his credit that many of his female targets remained his friends.

Bob the hill-walker: Known affectionately as Wainwright in the 80s, Bob walked every hill in the Lake District. He treasured his collection of Wainwright’s guides as he did the bronze of Wainwright on his window ledge, one of very few dust-collectors he allowed in his house.

Bob was always an avid collector. Not of dust but of music, films and books that would arrive by post on an almost daily basis. I will have an enduring image of Bob in his kitchen, or in his sitting room with those fabulous speakers, conducting The Ring Cycle or The Enigma Variations or Dark Side of The Moon. As for books, he ate through them at an incredible rate and the strange thing was, when he’d finished reading a book, you would be hard pressed to know it had actually even been opened. It would be perfect. This would occasionally be quite useful for him e.g. when he needed a last- minute Xmas present.

But mostly Bob collected people. All his life. He will be sorely missed by his brothers to whom he was close, to his long-term friends whom he put so much time and energy into so as to keep in contact, as well as by some of his newest friends.

Bob, the ‘one-man party machine’ partied on to the end, despite his rapidly declining health. There was almost nothing, but nothing, on earth that could not be used as an excuse for a party.

One dank morning in early May last year, whilst visiting Bob, we became aware that a council rubbish truck had toppled sideways into the ditch just up the lane. Bob was out there like a shot, a man on a mission. Within minutes he was leading the entire yellow-jacketed crew of the truck back down the lane through the drizzle, a childlike, wicked grin plastered all over his face. That was my last photo of Bob. Into his kitchen they went where they drank only tea, to his chagrin, whilst he tucked into another glass of Merlot.

Although we spoke to Bob frequently over the last month (Jake more than me), we last saw him on the evening of Friday 18th December when we took him out to eat. We’d asked him to dress up a bit (i.e. ditch the ancient baggy trackie bottoms that he lived in daily) as we were going somewhere a bit smart. We arrived to find him perfectly suited and booted, wearing one of his beautiful, white, Indian-cotton shirts. Far smarter than ourselves. We drove into Harleston and found a parking place right outside The Taste of Raj.

“Jesus F***ing Christ”, he spat. “You asked me to dress up to spend the evening in this dump! Worst Indian takeaway ever from there last week. Execrable slop!” …or words to that effect.

“Bu..b…but Bob, you like curry, so we thought this would be a real treat for you, and we even requested a nice table by the window. Look, it’s packed. Can’t be that bad.”

“F***ing slop. I can’t believe it. This is what you call a treat! Oh well, I’ll just have to grin and bear it, I suppose,” he harrumphed as he started climbing the steps to the restaurant.

Yup. That was Bob with his closest friends.

Jake and I continued on. Bob soon realised we weren’t going into The Taste of Raj, caught up on us as we reached a more salubrious establishment across the road and with a big chesty chuckle said “You really got me there”. Chuckle chuckle. “I like that. Good one. Ha. You really got me! Excellent.”

We had a lovely last evening, with Bob on sparkling form. We talked of what was going on in our lives, and mutual plans, ideas for the future. He was delighted to see muscles, and calf’s liver and bacon, firm favourites, on the menu. Rarely for him, he had three courses and enjoyed the lot.

We drove Bob home, exchanged some little Xmas gifts, and promised to be back in the UK before he went to Thailand. As we drove away, waving goodbye, he seemed to linger longer than usual, motionless, a halo of white hair backlit in his doorway, drinking us in with his eyes.

We don’t know what he was thinking. That was the last we saw of Bob.

And so, the party’s finally over and the lights have gone out for the very last time.
Dearest Bob, (Why I’m addressing you Bob, I don’t quite know. Must be the bloody Irish in me). You filled up our lives with all that you were. In the end, life killed you, and killed part of us too.

We are so glad to have known you. It’s difficult to express our profound sadness, the grief we feel to be without you. We are now left with a planet-sized hole of almost intangible memories of the colourful and indomitable spirit of you that began its journey through life from behind the fire station in Rathmines.

We’d like to say “Party on, Big Boy”, wherever you are, but you and we know that the party is well and truly over.

As always, Bob, our dear friend, for that is what you were above all else, we’ll try to keep some of your vast spirit with us. Life won’t ever be quite the same, certainly won’t be so much wicked fun, without you.

Our love,
Caroline and Jake xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Written by kalikellett Posted in Uncategorized