Shit, another RIP thread. Bob who?
Sorry about the ramblng nature of this, but I'm a bit knocked sideways. Just got a call to say that an old friend has died, and it's a bit tough. So this is by way of catharsis, and to say something about a lovely, mad bloke who enthused me with the love of singing for the sheer bloody fun of it.
Bob White was a fabulous singer - ex Merchant Navy, an utter rogue and one of those characters that sticks with you. My own Walt Robertson, if you like. I first met him when I was 17, starry-eyed, naive and terribly middle-class in that anal English way. Bob was then in his forties, looked to be in his sixties and had a voice that made Tom Waits sound suave. I remember crying buckets when I first heard him sing Deportees with feeling and then laughing 'til I wet myself at his parodies - I wish I could still remember Forty Shades of Panzer Grey!
He'd drifted sideways into the re-enacting and living history malarkey to become Sir Thomas Blackwell's most unlikely recruit and singer, and it was through that that I met him.
He used to drink in a pub in Tulse Hill, a hairy-arsed part of South London, where there was one bar that was black and one that was Irish. Bob was neither - just a diamond geezer from the Docks - but he managed to become both the official fire-starter and peacemaker between the two of them. I remember us getting smashed on Guinness and Cider under the pool table while one of the frequent scraps raged overhead when Bob started laughing his head off and burst into song, bringing the whole thing to a standstill at this vision of a raddled, bearded troll under the table singing the most wonderful Spiritual.
He was a cracking shanty-man too, and claimed to have learned many of them as a youngster from proper shantymen. You wanted Valparaiso round the Horn, you got it, plus a guided tour of the bordellos and shebeens of Valparaiso, plus tales of how he was accidentally busted in a transvestite bar...and many others.
Then there was the time we somehow managed to adopt an errant piper from one of the Highland regiments who had gone AWOL from the Royal Tournament and made his way across London in full dress to pitch up accidentally at the pub where we were singing. "I was lost and heard you singing," he said plaintively. The poor guy was plied with much whisky, played his socks off and then staggered with us back to the house to drive the neighbours mad until just before dawn. At which Bob sorted out a taxi, got in it with the guy and took him back to the barracks where he managed to explain, in his gruff way, that this was a poor little lamb who'd fallen among wolves and shouldn't be judged too harshly. He charmed the CSM into saying little more than "Don't do it again, laddie," and then tried to book the guy for another session.
I moved away from London and we lost touch for a few years, then we met up a few times, but Bob got hugely depressed, hit the gargle and vanished from sight. I'd still hear his songs and his filthy anecdotes in my head, though, and often think - I wonder where the hell Bob is now.
And now today's call. I'll do The Outside Track for him next time I sing. He really was the last of the careless men.
Sorry for rambling, but I wanted to mark his passing. And maybe there's a few out there knew him and can raise a glass.
Cheers Bob, you salty old sod!