by Denis Rice

Tony Robb died in June. One of the founding five of Open House, he was our first editor, combative and energetic. I had known him for nearly sixty years.

Tony’s signature first appeared in my Aberdeen home visitors’ book in 1961. By precious coincidence, the entry next to Tony is Ian Willock, and, close by, is Jamus Smith. We were a quartet involved in 61/62, in stirring up the Newman Association in Aberdeen – early meetings hosted by my late wife. Going our separate ways of employment, decades passed before we four met again. In a tidy symmetry of Catholic stirrings, the next gathering was in June 1990. With Jim McManus, we were in a room at Dundee University plotting the launch of Open House. (Today, the total maleness of that group has to be confessed. In meek, but weakish defence, there were five collaborative wives at home.)

Born in Dundee in 1936, the youngest of three boys, Tony Robb spent most of his life in his native city. As an infant, his very survival was at risk: born with spina bifida, he contracted scarlet fever and, at aged four, polio. His primary education was mostly in home-schooling by his teacher parents. For the rest of his growing up, their tough love approach, harsh in the short term, gave Tony adult resilience and, probably, his stubbornness and a certain social defensiveness. His life companions were to be calipers, sticks, and then wheelchair.

That background was, I suspect, scarcely known to many of Tony’s acquaintances and colleagues. It makes the depth and range of his life’s accomplishments even more astonishing than they were. There was a bit of the polymath in Tony.

He enjoyed secondary school at Lawside Academy. But it was at University in Dundee that he flourished and entered a world of newfound freedom. His first degree built on his gift for French and German. This was followed by graduation in law. Part-time, postgraduate study continued until he was 28, leading to a Manchester qualification in Hospital Administration. He dabbled in a Linguistics degree and somewhere in his pursuit of higher education, room was found for a theology course. His love of learning was grounded in the belief that learning is for its own sake. Tony’s children and grandchildren recall being repetitively grilled in that conviction.

But Tony’s love of the academic and the intellectual led to practical commitment in the activist years of his life. University debating moved beyond theory, to persuasive and political advocacy. Contrary to his parents’ largely conservative view, he developed a left-leaning outlook. Energised by his strong religious faith, he became concerned with social justice and, particularly, the intrusion of privatisation in public services. It was no surprise to find him professionally employed in NHS administration, on hospital provision, first, in Aberdeen, and, back home, in Dundee.

It was in Aberdeen that Tony met the young nurse, Wilma McDonald, who was to become his wife. The 1964 start of their relationship suggests courtship gaucheness in Tony. Initially, he tried to convert Wilma to Catholicism, before taking the trouble to discern that she was already a devout RC. Second, his invitation to a date was to attend football match between Celtic and Aberdeen. But despite that unpromising overture, the couple were married in 1966 and settled in Dundee. They had three daughters, Mary, Pat and Lucy. After opening their home to several foster children, they adopted two sons, James and Richard.

Following Lucy’s birth, Tony took some time off, before working for Shelter. The next evidence of practical activism was setting up, with a colleague, the Cleghorn Housing Association, in the family front room. Tony’s final professional work, into his seventies, was in Community Education, with Dundee City Council.

In retirement, Tony maintained his zest for life, no doubt sustained by his interest in real ale. He embraced and mastered all up-to-date developments in information technology. He continued to be a zealot for good grammar and against the misuse of the apostrophe. The family report that his editorial eye for accuracy in language was exercised as much on them as in his scrutiny of the broadsheet newspapers. Up to his last days, he continued to get fatherly enjoyment from giving paternal correction.

The family have given me much needed help in writing this piece about Tony. From the many years we were out of touch, there were so many questions. Some only Tony could answer, or Wilma. Alas, neither can answer. For seven years, Wilma has been in a care home with Alzheimer’s Disease. That absence, at the heart of a treasured family life, was yet one more grievous cross carried on Tony’s pilgrimage.

I had a final question from what I now see and regret, as years lost between us. It’s a question which links Open House and Tony. Had he, our first editor, ‘given up’ on us, moved away from the vision that we all had thirty years ago when we decided to launch the journal? I think I have an answer – words spoken in the Covid restricted service, at Tony’s graveside, surrounded by his family.

Tony’s wishes were that we were to respect his faith, although his relationship with faith could be described as interesting and unorthodox, unique and perhaps unconventional. He questioned and challenged the institution of the Catholic Church but his strong faith in God never faltered