Obituaries
the Cricket XI of 1946 and the 1st Hockey XIs of 1945, 1946 and 1947. He played in the Rackets teams of 1946 and 1947 and the Squash teams of 1945, 1946 and 1947. His grandson, Toby Lewis, was at Radley. His son Sandy’s tribute: What a wonderful gathering of Robin’s family and friends here at Montacute. Minker and Dad had 14 good years at the wonderful Park House, where they extended a very warm welcome to all, and where Minker created a special garden. Their many friends in the village have been most generous in our preparations for today. Robin was involved in this church in many ways, continuing a long record of service that ran through from the late 1950s at Layer Marney to Shalford and Toppesfield. Our Dad was of course christened Robert Harold and when he was in hospital recently my only difficulty was getting the nurses to call him Robin, as the name ROBERT was clearly displayed above his bed. One day he recalled that the shortening to Robin had been started by his nanny at Colne House; and once this was relayed to the nurses we entered a whole new world of familiarity! Dad’s relationship with beer and brewing literally covered his whole life. Both his parents had direct connections into the trade – the Soameses in Spalding, and the Combeses in Covent Garden which merged in 1901 to form Watney Combe Reid. He joined Watneys on the 1st January 1950, aged just 20, and served on the Board from 1957 to 1982. At the time of the famous contested take-over bid by Grand Met in 1974 he was running the tenanted estate of some 4,000 pubs; and in the ruthless period of rationalisation that followed, he was known as ‘The Great Survivor’. It gave him enormous pleasure to see Tamzin marry into the trade, and to watch Beryn’s astutely managed revival of the Felinfoel Brewery. Including minor inputs from me on the global industry, there were always brewing issues to discuss. He was endlessly fascinated by any sport involving a small ball, and quite expert at a number of them. At Radley he was in the College 1st teams for squash, rackets, tennis, hockey and cricket; and a College prefect. In his later years he enjoyed playing golf, especially with his grandchildren, and watching tennis and golf with his brother Richard. Matching these two passions of beer and the little ball, indeed of even greater importance in his life, was his all-consuming
84
the old radleian 2015
Robin Soames in a point-to-point and life-long love affair with all matters equine, possibly seeded by his father who hunted or shot at least five days a week, and was not troubled by the constraints of office life! Apart from faded photographs to evidence Robin’s passion, and his stories of travelling to the East Essex meet by train from Chappel as a child, recently we found a book given by his parents for Christmas 1939, entitled “Keeping a Pony at Grass”. He played polo when on National Service with the 11th Hussars and, after leaving the regiment, assisted his soldier friend and great horseman Ron Wall to take on the Perseverance pub in Long Melford. The pub had stables behind, and it provided a great start for Ron to act as semi-private trainer to Robin and Nat Sherwood. Ron and his team helped Robin to win 25 point-to-points over 18 years, and always produced his horses at their very best on the day. In fact they were so fit that there are numerous stories of Dad getting a little carried away – for example at Moulton where on a bend, in the lead, his horse jumped out of the course onto the road; whereupon he immediately jumped it back, re-joined the race, and still finished in the first four. On another occasion at Marks Tey in 1963 he won the Adjacent race and jumped two more fences after the finishing post, which triggered a major dressing down by the stewards before receiving the silver! His most cherished day on the East Anglian circuit was a double at the East Essex meeting in 1966. The painting
displayed in the church porch is of his two winning horses that day. With his height of over 6’ 3” he struggled with his weight; so there were frequent visits to the Turkish baths in London during the week, and on Saturday he would breakfast on simply a glass of sweet sherry and a raw egg. Apart from Robin helping to run the East Essex meeting, our loyal and loving mother Sue cooked the stewards’ lunches at Layer Marney, and took the full spread over in her green Morris Minor traveller – which became our field buggy at Abbots Hall when it had passed its 10th birthday. Gaily decorated, with a noisy exhaust and consuming all the petrol destined for the lawnmower, it was a classically generous gesture by Dad. We all learned to drive in it, including Jack and Sophie who were both under 10 at the time. When Robin retired from race riding, he hunted with the Quorn and East Essex, and offered great support to me keeping our point-to-pointers with Mike and Jenny Bloom, his second cousin, at their wonderful school for aspiring City jockeys. Those who lived with Robin would agree that he was a fairly quiet man in the domestic arena – consuming another book from his voluminous collection, or working through new projects in his farming jointventure with Roger Eves – but he liked nothing better than throwing a good party. I can recall a racy 1960s adult ‘disco’ at Layer Marney when our playroom was transformed with red light bulbs and the record player! And when Sue and Dad moved to Abbots Hall, they opened the