Robert Elliott
By Iain McCallum
In June Bob’s wife Frances advised me that sadly her husband Bob had passed away aged 90. They had been happily married for nearly 55 years.
Bob was the last surviving founder member of the Club. He was a member from 1944 to 1959. He was a contemporary of fellow founder members Len Stubbs, Plum and Robbie Worrall, and members - Bowden and Millie Black, Elsie Upton, Pat Holt, Norman Revitt and Derek Seddon. For a time while when he was living in Manchester Bob worked at Beyer Peacock’s factory at Gorton. The company was famous for its Beyer-Garratts articulated locomotives widely used in Africa and Australia and currently on the Welsh Highland Railway.
Bowdon told me that Bob was a keen fisherman and that on some Club meets he used to poach fish and rabbits. Bowden also told me that on his way to work one day he met Bob on the approach to London Road Station (Piccadilly Station). Bob was carrying a rucksack and his fishing rods. When Bowden asked where he was going he replied New Zealand! At the time I thought this was just another of Bowden’s stories but it turned out to be true. On his return from New Zealand in 1955 Bob went to live at Annan in Scotland.
(There is an interesting article with some great pictures including one of Bob Elliott in a 2008 newsletter at http://www.karabiner.org/newsletters/articleViewer.php?aid=633 – Ed.)
