ALLAN Robb, a former presenter on BBC Radio 5 Live who died last week aged 49, was a journalist of “tremendous flair and good fun”, writes Alison Shaw in today’s Herald.
As allmediascotland recently reported, the Scots broadcaster – who also enjoyed a spell anchoring BBC Scotland news flagship, Reporting Scotland – died after suffering from multiple sclerosis.
Says Shaw in an obituary to Robb: “Along with his childhood friend, Nicky Campbell, he achieved his career aspiration and became one of the best known voices on British radio, interviewing his hero, Nelson Mandela, during coverage of one of the country’s biggest news stories – the death of Diana, Princess of Wales.”
Robb, who began his broadcasting career at Aberdeen-based radio station, Northsound, had “a sense of humour that could reduce friends and colleagues to tears of laughter”, comments Shaw, adding: “Despite the increasingly debilitating effect of his illness, that humour endured. Recently, while in hospital and faced with a plate of food resembling mush, Robb politely interrupted the doctor’s flow of conversation, turned to the nurses and quipped: ‘Excuse me, I ordered the lobster.’”
