On Thursday morning I sent a WhatsApp to Alex Parker, congratulating him on being named the new editor-in-chief of Business Day, with a question about what a friend long departed this mortal coil might have said about his appointment: “I wonder what Robbo would have said to you? Something pithy and yet, grudgingly encouraging, I reckon. Then lit another smoke and wonder if it was time for a glass of wine.”
The late Peter Robinson was perhaps the greatest of SA sports writers, most certainly one of the most talented I have read and most definitely among the best I ever worked with. I met him when he wrote for The Star and, then, for a while, for me at The Sunday Independent and Saturday Star.
But Robbo never worked “for” someone, he worked with them. You got what Robbo wanted to give you and, inevitably, it was the finest of sports journalism. Robbo succumbed to cancer less than a month after Twitter was first unleashed on the world and missed the impact it had on the speed at which news and writing is consumed.
That, I suspect, was a good thing for Twitter and the world. Robbo never rushed his writing nor his thinking on sport. He wasn’t one to be overwhelmed with the opinions of others, mainly because he had his own and they were usually spot on. I would watch him “working” at his desk outside my office.
He played more games of Snood, the puzzle game, on his Mac than anyone I have ever seen. Hours of nothing and then a burst of fury on his keyboard and he was done. As Alex reminded me on Thursday morning, John Bishop, the former editor of the Natal Witness and a man who perhaps knew Robbo best, described him perfectly in his obituary: “Watching Robinson at work was an experience. He would wander around the editorial department, from the library to the tea room to the newspaper stacks, coffee cup in one hand and fag in the other (this was a long time ago), nattering away to anyone not tied to a desk. He was working, he would explain primly to any one daring to question his work ethic. And he was, conducting wide-ranging research, or at least seeking the spark for a column. Finally, he would return to his desk, bash away furiously, without lifting his head, for 40 minutes and his day was done.”
I often wonder what Robbo would have made of the state of sports journalism and writing in SA today. We spoke about it often over many drinks down the years, usually bottles of wine and sometimes at a café in Parkhurst. He would lament the desperation of editors and writers in calling an interview with a long retired Springbok an “exclusive”.
He would rail against writers given columns and space in the country’s largest newspapers based on little more than their ability to repeat the same thought over and over with little thought or the ability to develop the argument.
He would have little time for “churnalism”. But, then, he would pick out those with talent and praise them. Robbo would always offer a word, and it would come after a puff of his fag, a quick look into the distance, then his two arms helping him make the point. And it would come with a wry joke and a smile.
He once told me I had gone a little backwards and off the boil with my writing. I listened because, as Bishop wrote: “Peter was a lively presence in news rooms and press boxes the world over. He was well suited to the job with an easy, flowing style, able to work quickly and accurately under pressure. He was a gifted writer with a delightful, quirky sense of humour. He could, without forcing the issue, find a fresh, amusing angle to the most mundane event, marrying the serious to the ridiculous and making his point with a smile.”
Robbo died when he was just 54, robbing us of years of stories still to be told. I am the same age, and when I am stuck for a spark for a column, I default into Robbo mode — walking around bothering others.
I never told him before he died, but I wanted to be a sports writer like Peter Robinson. I suspect if I had he would have said something grudgingly encouraging. Then lit another smoke and wonder if it was time for a glass of wine.
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