Stuart Robinson

Hong Kong Flotilla Association

Obituary for Stuart Robinson

Stewart Robertson "Llobby"

Our Nissen Hut 76 Chinese Mess Boy Poon Ta Hoy could not pronounce “Robbie” it became “llobby hence the title.

Eulogy given at the Funeral of Stuart Robertson by Peter Yeates

I’ve had my hair cut Stuart, and my shoes are shined, so I hope I pass your muster on your last parade GI.

Stuart-Llobby-Robbie-

I can only tell you about two years 1955-1957 in Robbie’s life, and our friendship in the last 7 years. So if.......... my memories and my stories are just two years, then what an eventful life Stuart’s has had.

I take you back to Hong Kong of the fifties. We were young, and free, and on top of the world. Hong Kong in the fifties was a demi-Paradise for us teenagers after bleak grey post war Britain. We had been wartime kids, now we were in the bright lights of the Orient, and we made the most of it.

Robbie made more than the most of it. It was a time of rock and roll; Elvis was just blasting out his first hit "Heartbreak Hotel" from the Wanchai juke boxes. And Robbie in particular was rocking right around the Hong Kong clock. Hong Kong Island 1955, was hot humid noisy, and tropical.

I was a National Service youth of 18... Coming from a quiet Somerset office job I plunged straight into the Regular Royal Navy, and the company with some of the toughest- hard bitten- roughest Matelots that you could ever mix with...and of which... Robbie was the toughest, the tallest and loudest. The only way for me to survive was to make him laugh.

So I did make Robbie Laugh. I christened him "Ashington Arry" because that was is home. Ashington- Northumberland. He told me Jackie Charlton was in his class at School. We were young, and it was only yesterday.

My abiding memory of Robbie will always be of that first meeting. A Tall Mountain of a man, standing opposite me in Mess 76 HMS Tamar, and across from my Bedspace... towering over everyone smiling and laughing.

Robbie challenged everyone with his jokes and his devastating wit. And if you wanted a fight, then he was your man. He was frightened of no one. But he was not wicked and he was not a bully. If anything of Robbie that I shall forever remember, then it is his smile. He was always smiling and laughing.