The Wall • 60TH ANNIVERSARY
Wall Exhibition: Robin Adshead
Robin Adshead was a soldier, pilot and photojournalist. As part of this Club Wall retrospective, Corrin Adshead remembers his father’s life and work.
Robin Adshead was born in London in 1934. He was commissioned into the 6th Gurkha Rifles in 1954 and experienced jungle operations during the Malayan Emergency. After service in Malaya, Singapore and Hong Kong, he became a Light Aircraft Pilot in 1963, flying for the Army in UK, Europe and North Africa. When Confrontation with Indonesia in Borneo began, he was the only Gurkhali-speaking fixed-wing pilot in the Army. He retrained as a helicopter pilot and returned to Malaya in 1965 to raise and command the first Air Platoon of the 6th Queen Elizabeth’s Own Gurkha Rifles, flying Sioux helicopters during three operational flying tours in Borneo. In 1967, his Gurkha Air Platoon was transferred to Hong Kong where his unit was amalgamated into the Army Air Corps. He was Second-in-Command of the Squadron until he retired from the Army, at the rank of Major, in 1971, to become a photojournalist. Throughout his entire flying career, Robin managed to take numerous stunning photographs through the open door of a Sioux helicopter and it was during the late ’60s in Hong Kong that he became friends with several well-known Vietnam photojournalists of the era, such as Larry Burrows, whom he would meet with at the FCC to talk and learn about photography. Robin remained a regular visitor and Lifetime Absentee Member of the Club until he passed away suddenly at his home in La Herradura, Spain, on 10th November 2005. He was 71 years of age.
The Adshead family would like to thank the FCC for its kind support and invitation to go ahead with this exhibition at the Club. We are also very grateful to Bob Davis, who has assisted with the selection of the photographs and worked tirelessly to produce them in the required quality and format. Thanks as well to Bob’s associates and friends in Hong Kong and to Toby Carroll in Singapore, who scanned and restored the images. Thanks also to Color Six Laboratories in Hong Kong who helped with the exhibition prints.
G/F, 28A Stanley Street, Central, HK Tel: 25260123 www.colorsix.com
Above: The Repulse Bay Hotel THE CORRESPONDENT
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