I didn’t know Rob for long – just over three years in all. But I knew him long enough to learn that, like the ‘self’ in Walt Whitman’s poem ‘Song of Myself’, Rob contained multitudes – he was irrepressible, displaying a zest for life that was unsurpassable. Rob was also a great teacher, partly because he didn’t know he was doing it. Nevertheless, he displayed all the traits necessary to be a great teacher – enormous enthusiasm, a lack of pretention and an encyclopedic repository of useful (and useless) information. Of all the things I learned from Rob, three stand out: - The first was about how to be a man. I don’t mean this in a bullshit macho sense – Rob cooked and cleaned, and could even offer a sensitive, empathetic ear given a prevailing wind (and a prevailing glass of wine). But he was also strong, both physically and in a deeper sense. Rob had foundations. He knew how to build and maintain things – houses and businesses obviously, but also relationships and friendships. I think one reason Rob was so loved was because he offered such security – such a bear hug of warmth and power. I, for one, always felt safe in his presence, like he would always be there, always be supportive and always have my back. He was a truly great man and a truly great father-in-law. - Second, Rob taught me to live life by saying ‘yes’. I think that a lot of people are scared of life, of new challenges, new places or new people. This makes ‘no’ their natural impulse. But Rob was fearless. His whole life was premised on saying ‘yes’ - on exploring new places, on making new friends and on having new experiences. Travel was a crucial part of this, of course, but Rob also had a more basic sense of exploration – he was a great conversationalist and, even more so, a great listener. He seemed genuinely interested in people, in ideas, in opinions, in what you were up to. Of course, he might also have been a great actor. But I don’t think his interest was feigned, at least not all the time – everyone who knew Rob seems to have some story of his interest in their lives and in his enthusiasm for their experiences, however mundane. This made Rob undiscerning in the best possible sense (for which I, for one, am very grateful) - he always saw the best in people, he was attentive and he was supremely generous with his time. Above all, he seemed to start every sentence with a ‘yes’ rather than a ‘no’. That is a rare sensibility and it is one that I will be trying hard to replicate. - Third, Rob helped teach me how to be a good individual. Much of Rob’s story is tied up with overcoming difficult circumstances – he had few advantages in life and experienced his fair (actually, unfair) share of setbacks. But these didn’t stop him – in fact, they made him stronger, at least in the long run. As someone with more advantages than Rob had, I think the worst thing I could do would be to squander these advantages. Rob’s experience shows that there are no limits to what we can achieve through a lot of bloody hard work and a dogged insistence that this will yield results. Rob may not have beaten cancer, at least not the third time it attacked him. But he did everything in his power, to the end, to live as he always had – with energy, with a deep commitment to those around him and, perhaps most of all, to live life as a celebration. That’s certainly how I’ll remember him. And that’s certainly how I’ll try and live too – maximizing every moment of every day. Plus the odd night. Rob taught me these things – and many more. He was brave and strong. He was open to the world. He was hard-working to a fault. He was, in short, the most loveable of men. I loved him very much.