Llobby Robertson' Petty Officer Stuart Robertson

As a Senior Petty Officer, Robbie was on a destroyer making a port call in Rio de Janeiro — all tied up with the Battle of the River Plate and so forth. Robbie was in charge of one of the ship’s duty parties, and as luck (or bad timing) would have it, his lot were scheduled for double duty. Naturally, Robbie wasn’t thrilled.

So he struck a deal with his officer: if his party “dug out” — that’s Navy slang for working their socks off — before they reached Rio, they could go ashore the moment they “hove to.” I believe the ship was to dock on a buoy in the fast-flowing River Plate. A fiddly business.

True to form, Robbie's team worked like demons and got everything squared away. He reported back:

“We’ve squared off, Sir. All finished. Can we go ashore now?”

The officer looked at him and said, quite flatly:

“No.”

Robbie — never one to take a broken promise lightly — reminded him of the agreement.

The officer replied with a smirk:

“You shouldn’t believe everything I tell you.”

So Robbie — with all the calm logic of a man provoked beyond reason — picked the officer up and threw him into the River Plate.

Apparently, Robbie was relieved of duty and flown home rather swiftly. There was mitigation (the officer survived, and possibly learned a valuable lesson), so Robbie wasn’t severely punished. But that incident marked the end of his Royal Navy career. He "went outside" in 1977.

He was never quite contented after that. The man who once belonged so fully to the Navy found it hard to stomach the civilian world. His constant refrain from then on became:

“I hate civilians.”

Still, Robbie found glimmers of that old happiness again during his trips back to Hong Kong — twice, possibly more — in the company of his shipmates, me among them.

Even then, Robbie’s razor-sharp wit and relentless “mickey-taking” could be too much for some. He was never universally popular — but he was unforgettable. A charmer, too. The ladies adored him.

Brenda, in particular, warmed to him. After a lifetime in business, she had long grown weary of the “thrusting wife/girlfriend” crowd that often surrounded my work. But among the Hong Kong Fraternity, she found at last the kindest, most genuine group of people she’d ever known — and Robbie was right at the heart of it.

He made her laugh.

He once said to her:

“Peter tells me your name is Brenda. So what’s your second name?”

She replied:

“Eileen.”

Robbie grinned and said:

“Mind if I call you Eileen? Only I’ve been married three times — and all of them were called Brenda.”

We all went to Nottingham for his 70th Birthday, that was a real party. Sadly Robbie died of painful cancer, and even at the end in our final telephone calls he said " I know I have joked all my life Pete, but as I let my cacks down for an examination or a scan, I could see in the mirror the nurses laughing at my tattoos, and I didnt like it" Robbie had two enormous peacocks on his bum cheek.

He was no respecter of persons either- The surgeon asked him how he was since he last had seen him, he said " well I know you wouldn't have let your own wife suffer the pain I have for the last three weeks, and you should be ashamed'