Robinson, Powell Montagu (Robbie) Interview

Radio host Dave Pipe interviews presenter Robbie Robinson

My special guest this morning … Robbie. Hello, Robbie, nice to have you here.

Morning, Dave. Hello, everyone.

Been a long time, hasn’t it? Forty-one years doing the ‘Motoring with Robbie’ session.

Yes, yes – since 1949.

Was it a sad day to hear that last broadcast on Saturday morning?

Are you asking me, or are you telling me? [Chuckle]

I’m asking you.

Yes, it was. It was … sort of the end of an era, and it meant of course that an association was lost with the wonderful staff in radio. I met some wonderful people in Radio New Zealand.

A long association … association of course that has not gone unnoticed. We have a very special message for you this morning.

‘Hello Robbie, this is Beverley Wakim. I don’t know whether to say it gives me pleasure to talk to you at [on] this occasion or to say that I’m really sorry that the forty-one year reign of Robbie, the motorists’ friend, has come to an end. It’s an enviable record. I worked out this morning it’s something like just over two thousand programmes that you’ve prepared and presented for us over those years; not to mention I’ve got a vague memory that you did actually do the odd thing for Saturday Night at Home in past years. And of course I remember more recently the marvellous nostalgia programme you did in the then Tonight Show which created a tremendous amount of interest on the part of our listeners. And I think that’s been the essence of your career in broadcasting, Robbie, is being interested and being interested, [interesting] and the combination of the two has made for some really riveting listening over the years. And I know, particularly with the motoring show, a lot of help to a lot of people from some very zany requests and simple requests to some really complex ones and you’ve managed to handle them all with enormous aplomb and humanity and humour. It’s been a marvellous record, Robbie; thank you very much for all that you’ve contributed to public broadcasting in New Zealand, and may I take the opportunity on behalf of the Board and my colleagues to wish you a very long and happy and productive retirement.’

A lot of people would quite agree with what Beverley has to say there, and [in] fact everyone would. Yes, it has been a long association – two thousand-odd programmes that you’ve prepared for Radio New Zealand. Where did it all start anyway, Robbie?

Well it started in Gisborne. And by the way, that was pretty good from Beverley Wakim, and quite a surprise.

I bet it was. Sorry to throw that on you …

I’ll have to write her a letter; [chuckle] and I certainly will.

Yes, I was a motor mechanic in the Post Office workshops in Gisborne and in 1949 I transferred to the Transport Department as it was then called as a vehicle inspector.

Yeah, let’s go back a bit further than that; of course you were employed with the Post Office in another role, messenger boy, first of all …

Messenger boy, yes.

… and you didn’t particularly like having to wear a collar and tie, so you got into where you could roll up your sleeves and do a bit of mechanical work.

Yes – they sent me down to the workshop with a bike that needed repairs to its brakes. And I didn’t even know there was a workshop, but they said, “Oh yes, there’s one there” [chuckle] “all right.” And so off I went and … oh, I liked the atmosphere down there – no collars and ties, as you say.

Were you interested in mechanical things at that time?

Not fearfully, no. No. But in the Post Office they had been very good to me. I sort of got beyond the message boy stage, and they tried me in the telephone exchange, and they tried me in the mail room and they tried me on the front counter, and Money Order[s] … all sorts of places, to see what I wanted to do if I wanted to stick with the Post Office.

‘Cause in those days of course, when you joined Public Service or a group like the Post Office it was going to be for life, wasn’t it?

Oh, you’re there for forty years, yes … full stop. Anyway, I went out to the workshops, and I liked the atmosphere there, so I asked if I could start there. I asked the chap in charge, the foreman, chap named Gordon Cassey, if there was a vacancy. He said, “Yes, as a matter of fact we do want an apprentice here; I’ll see what I can do about it.” And so I was transferred to the Engineers’ Department of the Post Office and became an apprentice mechanic. And then the war came along, and I went to the scrap for a few years.

You were in the Solomons, weren’t you?

Yes, in the Royal New Zealand Air Force. I was a radar mechanic strangely enough.

What was the time like over there? How long did you spend in the Solomons, anyway?

Three years I think it was, yes.

Based whereabouts in the Solomons?

Guadalcanal and New Georgia mainly.

What was that time like?

Terrible. Terrible place. Gosh – you wouldn’t want to go there for a holiday. Anyway …

Just the atmosphere? I know you came back and you were a bit disillusioned, weren’t you? I’ve read somewhere that when you came back you …

Couldn’t settle down.

Very unsettled?

Yes.

What caused that unsettling period? Was it the war, or what was it?

I think so, yes, just the war. I’d seen something different; some of it I liked, some of it I didn’t like, and I felt I needed a change. I could also see that there wasn’t a great deal of future for me in the workshop – I’d finish up as a motor mechanic at a bench probably – at the very best a foreman, but I’d still be working under rotten conditions. Mechanics work under rotten conditions you know, they’re on [a] concrete floor, and in the winter time the concrete sweats and it’s always wet. And everything you handle, all the tools are all cold, and … ugh!

You get the grease of course, ingrown into your hands?

Yes, yes. And so I thought, ‘Oh, I’ve got to get out of here.’ And the Transport Department advertised for vehicle inspectors and …

What qualifications did you have to have for that?

A Grade mechanic.

And you were an A Grade mechanic at the time?

Mmm, yes, but that’s all. So okay, I started there in 1949, and in that same year – I’d always been a radio fan you see, all my spare time was spent listening to the radio. So one day I thought I’d go up the stairs and have a look and see what made the local radio station tick. And the chap in charge, he showed me round, and I asked him about staff because there didn’t seem to be anybody much around; and he explained that the station employed people on contract work … contractees … and they were paid you know, on a part time basis doing the announcing. And he asked me if I would be interested in having a go, and I said, “Yes, all right.” So he organised an audition test; he went into another room and listened to an extension speaker. And he’d given me things to read, and so that went on for about ten minutes. And when he came out of the room I could see by the look on his face that he wasn’t too impressed, and I said, “How did that go?” And he said, “Well, um … fair to lousy. But I think there’s hope for you, and if you’d care to come in at night I’ll teach you microphone technique … teach you announcing.” So I did that, and while episodes of ‘The Japanese House Boy’ and ‘Dad & Dave from Snake Gully’ and ‘Eb & Zeb’ and Black Moth’ and so on were playing, he taught me announcing and microphone technique. And then he let me go on air all by myself.

Can you remember that first time going on air?

Yes, I was terrified. [Chuckle] Yes. [Chuckle] I had a technician, he played the records for me …

Bit different from what it’s like now?

Yes, yes, I … looking at you there working away before we went on air, [be]fore I came on air … it’s a real one man band now.

It is indeed, ‘tis indeed. But radio in those days had a great appeal didn’t it? I mean there wasn’t television really, I mean, in those days, and everybody seemed to be tuned to their radio sets at night, didn’t they?

Yes, yes.

More of an appeal then I guess, than it does now?

Yes. Yes, well there was nothing else to do; either that or read. The television has made all the difference to night time radio, there’s no doubt about that.

Got a lot to answer for in a whole wide range of things, hasn’t it?

Yes. Oh yes, yes, too right.

So okay, you learnt how to go on air and you did your first air shift, and where did you progress from there? I mean, when is it the start of ‘Motoring with Robbie’? I mean, that must’ve been around about that time?

Yes it was.

Who had the idea for it?

Well when I started with the station it was not a commercial station; it was like a national station really. There was [were] no commercials at all, but then it went commercial. They changed the call sign from 2ZJ to 2XG, and a local garage proprietor asked about a motoring programme, and if the station had a fellow on the staff that [who] could do a motoring programme. And they said, “Yes, we’ve got just the bloke here.” So they asked me if I would do it, and I agreed. They said, “Well, do you think you could keep it going for a year?” And I said, “Oh yes, I thought I could.” They said, “Well what about five years? We’ve got to look to the future, you know.” “Yes – ooh … five years? No, I don’t think so. Oh – I don’t know … just see.” And so it went on and on and on until 1957 when I moved to Napier.

In between times other stations had picked it up, and I’ve got the advertising salesmen to thank for that. As they moved around the country they advised various garages that there was a motoring programme in existence, and would they like to sponsor it? So New Plymouth was the first one to take it, and then Tauranga, and then Masterton, and then Hamilton, Whangarei, Invercargill, and oh … I got lost after that – I can’t remember them all. There were twenty-four altogether, in the finish.

Just the name, ‘Motoring with Robbie’ … Robbie, who of course last Saturday morning broadcast the final programme, ‘Motoring with Robbie’ – of course a programme that is well known throughout the whole of New Zealand. I believe it will be most probably mentioned on television; the Holmes programme have got a bit of interest in it, haven’t they?

Yes, they asked for copy of the last programme.

That would have been a bit different, having a camera pointed at you rather than a microphone, Robbie?

Yes, [chuckle] … yes, I suppose so, although I will not appear on TV1, but will appear on TV3. The TV3 people spent a couple of hours at the house [the] day before yesterday; I’m not sure at this stage when it will screen. There was some confusion over the presentation date, and it was to’ve been on last night but they rang fairly early in the evening and said no, there’s been a muck up over the scheduling date; they’d ring me and let me know when it would be presented. It’ll be in the 6.30 News. Although they were there for two hours I’ll probably be on screen for about two seconds. [Chuckle]

That’s television though, isn’t it?

Yep.

Robbie, your name of course … not many people might know this, but it’s Powell Montagu Robinson.

Yes.

What a mouthful!

Yes. [Chuckle] Well my father was a Londoner you see, and Robinson in London was a pretty common name … thousands of them. And he’d decided that if he ever had a son he wouldn’t be just ordinary Tom Robinson or Bill Robinson or George Robinson. So he did have a son; he married an Australian – my mother was an Aussie – and he named me Powell Montagu – Powell after Baden-Powell, you know, the Chief Scout? And Montagu because Montagu Norman was the manager of the Bank of England. No relation unfortunately, [chuckle] but that’s how I got my name.

A name like that – did it cause you any difficulty when you were at school?

Yes … yes, it did. And even after that; people couldn’t spell it, and some, you know, that couldn’t pronounce it, and I got ‘Pal’ and ‘Paul’ …

So what did your parents call you?

Powell.

Okay. Later on you got nicknamed Monty?

Yes – that was when I started in the Post Office as a message boy. I met the Postmaster in the private box lobby; he stopped me and he said, “Hey, you’re new here, aren’t you?” I said, “Yes, sir.” His name was George Nelson. He said, “What’s your name?” I said, “Robinson, sir.” “What’s your first name?” “Powell.” “Oh yes – have you got a second name?” “Yes.” “What’s that?” “Montagu.” “Powell Montagu”, he said, “oh, God! We’ll have to do something about that … we’ll call you Monty.” [Chuckle] And so it stuck; and when I started broadcasting they talked about a motoring programme. “Well, what’re we going to call this thing?” And ‘Motoring with Powell’ didn’t sound right; ‘Motoring with Monty’ sounded a bit corny; and somebody suggested, “Well why not ‘Motoring with Robbie?’” And so it stuck.

Simple as that, eh? Everyone knows you as Robbie now. And the format for your programme too, ‘Motoring with Robbie’ session, is one that has endured, hasn’t it? How did you start your programmes?

I used to start with the sound effect of a car arriving …

That’s right – that was early on, wasn’t it?

The car would stop and the door would open and slam, and then, “Good morning, everybody.” Then at the end of the programme – it used to run for thirteen minutes – the door would slam again, the safety belt would click, the engine would start …

The safety belt clicking though, that came in at a later date?

Yes, that was put in afterwards, that’s right.

When safety belts became compulsory and when everybody was putting safety belts in their car. But the format itself, starting off with “Good morning, listeners, and welcome to this week’s motoring session”, and then you went on and gave some advice. And then there were the letters; you answered the letters, and then finally of course, the story. And has it always remained that way?

Yes.

Was that something that you consciously formulated or was it something that maybe you were advised on?

No, it was something that I did myself, but from time to time Radio New Zealand, as they changed names from the National Broadcasting Service to NZBC to Radio New Zealand, they asked if I could change the format. And I said, “Yes, by all means; have you got any ideas?” But nobody could suggest a better format so it stuck at the original, except that it was pruned down to six or six and a half minutes, and I think it’s a good idea. I reckon that to expect an audience to listen to the one voice for thirteen or fourteen minutes is asking too much.

When you came to Hawke’s Bay, 19 ..?

’57.

1957 … you didn’t immediately start your motoring session here?

No.

There’s a story behind that.

Yes, I was recording it in Gisborne for the other stations as I told you, about five or six of them. So when I came here I called on the station manager and asked him if it would be all right if I could continue recording the programmes from Napier studios. Ken Collins it was, he and Roland Levin, the programme organiser, they called them then … be a programme director now. He and Roland Levin were sitting there having a cup of tea and so they said, “Yes, that’ll be all right; just make your arrangement with them over there; see Jim Grant, the supervising technician, he’ll fix it up.” And I said, “Oh by the way, you’ve just opened the station here, 2ZC” – we now call it Bay City Radio. “It’s a commercial station?” “Yes.” “Well perhaps you’d like to broadcast the motoring session, and I wouldn’t mind doing it for you for the Hawke’s Bay listeners.” They smiled and said, “Oh well, Mr Robinson, that’s all taken care of, thank you. We have somebody that will be doing it, and he’ll be doing the first programme on Saturday this week.” “Oh”, I said, “I’ll listen with more than passing interest. Anyway, if anything untoward should happen you can get in touch with me by ringing the Ministry of Transport.” And they just smiled benevolently and said, “Yes, all right, Mr Robinson, we’ll do that.” It was a classic, you know, ‘Don’t call us, we’ll call you’ job. And so I left them. And would you believe it, Dave – this chap that they got to do the programme broadcast his first programme Saturday morning, and died in the afternoon. Needless to say the phone was ringing first thing on Monday morning. So I took over from somebody; I stepped into a dead man’s shoes, and I had to be very careful. I felt so sorry for his wife and family, and I was very careful in choosing the right words when I presented the first programme in his stead.

You would’ve had to [be]. We’re talking about forty-one years of the motoring session – I guess you could say the longest running non-stop programme, on commercial radio anyway. It’s a New Zealand record and most probably could be even a world record, I don’t know. You were associated with Stewart Greer Motors – they’ve been a sponsor of your programme for many years now, haven’t they?

Yes, twenty-one years. They’ve been good sponsors too, they’ve never ever interfered, they’ve never criticised; they’ve been jolly good.

That’s a long association, that must be just about a record too …

Oh yes, it would be.

… with one particular programme, the sponsorship?

When I first came to Napier, Holts … you know, Holts Hardware … they sponsored it, but it didn’t last long, about six months, and then it changed to Deluxe Car Sales over in Hastings; they sponsored it for several years and then the sponsorship changed to Stewart Greers.

Stewart Greer Motors, a family firm in Hawke’s Bay …

Yes.

… and a long association with you.

The programme itself … I mean, when you started broadcasting the programme, who did you have in mind was going to benefit from it?

The do-it-yourselfer, the amateur, and also the person who just didn’t know a thing about motor cars. I would read these handbooks, you know, that came with the car – it was the one that came in the glove locker – and they were so badly written; obviously not written by journalists or anybody with any flair for writing, and there was a whole lot of gobbledegook in them. And they would use terms and words that people wouldn’t understand, so I thought, ‘Oh well, I could broadcast some of this information.’ I would rewrite it and put it into plain man’s language; for instance, you know, they would refer to the differential. Well a lot of people wouldn’t even know where the differential was in the car; they wouldn’t know if it was in the back or the front or what. And so I sort of systematically went through the handbook and picked out little bits here and there and gave simple explanations but not so simple that … I mean, they’re not fools out there, all these people, and I didn’t want to make it sound, you know, too simple … too childish.

In those days did more people do their own work on cars than they do now?

Yes they did. And it was all right, I mean, they couldn’t come to a great deal of harm, not really; you know, they were quite simple really, ‘specially the American cars.

Was there a time though that you’d say, “Hey don’t do it yourself, take it to a mechanic?”

That time is now. [Chuckle] Since the arrival of the Japanese cars on the New Zealand market, that’s put an end to the do-it-yourselfers – except that there’re still a lot of old Morris Minors and Morris 8s and Ford Anglias and so on, around.

Not as many as there used to be, eh?

No, no, they’re fast fading away. But the modern car is very, very sophisticated and the technology is really quite wonderful, sometimes to the point of being a little bit confusing; I don’t know whether you caught an item in the Daily Telegraph a few weeks ago. [Chuckle] In their column ‘The Telegraphics’ a certain elderly Napier couple recently decided to trade in their 1950 model car and take a step into the 1990s – you know, a new model complete with a stereo that was supposed to do all sorts of amazing things. But they were a bit disappointed when it wouldn’t even accept the cassette tapes let alone play them, so back they went to the dealer and he fixed the trouble in no time at all, in a couple of seconds. It seems that although the elderly couple had swotted up on what happened when they pressed the various buttons and things, they hadn’t swotted up on where to actually put the cassette tape. However, they’re now well aware that cassette tapes don’t work when they’re put in the ashtray. [Chuckles] Well you know, that’s really true – we’ve got a 1989 car, we bought it last year, and it’s got a fairly sophisticated radio in it.

Stereo system … four speakers, the whole works, eh?

Yes – and unless you use the thing every day, you know, you forget how to work the thing. [Chuckle]

Absolutely. Of course many thousands of people right throughout New Zealand have been tuning in to you over the years, not only for your motoring programme, Robbie, but also for the other programmes which we’ll talk about very shortly. Did you always get a lot of letters?

Yes, averaged about five a week. Of course they came from all over New Zealand, they were not only Hawke’s Bay listeners writing; or perhaps I might only get one letter a week from a Hawke’s Bay listener. But I used to tell the listeners occasionally to write to the station that they were listening to, and of course if it was 1ZB Auckland well 1ZB would simply put them back in the mail addressed to Box 241 Napier, that’s Bay City Radio’s number, and I’d get them here.

Did you ever get letters that you really couldn’t answer?

Yes, occasionally.

What did you do about them?

Well, I would go directly to the service manager of the garage – for instance, if it was a Honda I’d go to Stewart Greers and see the service manager, and say “Hey, look at this – here’s a sticky one, what do you reckon about this?” Well of course, you know, he gets the bulletins and all the guff from Japan and he’s one jump ahead of me, and he would come to light with the answer. It might’ve been a Ford perhaps – well I’d go around to Crichton Ford here and see the service manager and say the same to him. I didn’t have to do it very often; a wee bit like a lawyer I suppose. I remember asking a lawyer, my legal adviser, you know, how he could manage to sort out different people’s problems; every time somebody walked in the door they had a different problem. And he said, “Oh well, I simply do what you probably do.” He said, “I apply basics. Well cars are cars, and if it’s got a knock in the engine, whether it be a Ford or a Honda or a Mitsubishi, whatever, it’s probably a piston, or it could be a bearing knock or whatever, depending on the conditions.

Were there any real strange ones … strange letters that you got? Unusual problems, very trivial, maybe funny problems?

Yes, there was [chuckle] one bloke. I think he was a Taumarunui or a Taihape listener, and he had a Bradford. And he did say that he had lost the dipstick and he had fashioned one of his own, and after he had fitted it to the engine – this was the engine oil dipstick – after he had fitted it he said there was a funny clicking noise that was worrying him, and you know, what could this be? And I thought it was inconceivable that he hadn’t put two and two together and thought, ‘Now what have I done? Oh, well I’ve made a dipstick; now the click wasn’t there before I fitted the newly fashioned dipstick – it must be too long.’ Which is what it was, but it intrigued me that somebody couldn’t sort that sort of thing out for themselves, and could be bothered sitting themselves down … He wasn’t having me on, not at all. In fact after it was broadcast he wrote to me and said that he’d listened with distaste to what I had to say because I did joke about it.

You trivialised it a wee bit … fair enough. [Chuckle] He deserved that most probably, didn’t he?

I s’pose he did, yes.

Apart from your radio programme, you’ve written a lot of articles for the newspapers, you’ve done a lot of test driving of vehicles; is there any vehicle that really stands out as something special that you’ve tested?

That’s a fairly difficult one, Dave. I’ve always been a fan for the luxury cars. I’ve never owned one, not a real luxury car.

So what would you like to own?

Ah, I’d like a Honda Legend, or one of these Toyota Cressidas; or … crikey, a Mercedes Benz, perhaps a Jaguar … but heck, you know, with stuff like Jaguar you’re getting up to $169,000. I haven’t got that sort of money. But they’re all lovely cars, lovely cars to drive, beautifully equipped.

Of course you’re well known for the nostalgia programme that you did with Wayne Mouat. You did that for what, about seven years, didn’t you?

Yes, yes, yes – that was very successful. We … I got a lot of enjoyment out of that really, you know, presenting the programme. Some of our listeners possibly don’t remember it, but you’ll remember that he was in Wellington and I was here in the Napier studios, and we’d use the microwave link. It used to go through the automatic exchange and up the pole to that great big dish, you know, we’ve got here in Shakespeare Road? And out over the mountain tops to Wellington, and his would come back to me. And the quality of the transmission was so good that people thought that I went to Wellington every Thursday night and we were sitting in the same studio, but we weren’t.

There is a definite knack though, and there’s a talent in being able to do that … that talent you and Wayne had, because you did sound as if you were just talking to one another.

Yes.

And that’s a little bit difficult isn’t it, when you can’t see the person, Robbie?

Yes, yes, it is rather. But I knew him because he worked here for some years, and married a Hastings girl, Debbie, and he was good to work with. He had had, you know, quite a bit of microphone experience. I made sure that when I was here I would never ever answer the phone. There was somebody else in the building – there was a technician on duty and he would answer the phone – but I wouldn’t allow anything to interrupt my concentration.

I believe there was one time when your concentration was interrupted, when we had a bit of an earthquake. Do you remember that?

I was actually speaking to Wayne at the time. I was sitting where you’re sitting now and the mike started jigging about. I thought, ‘Heck’, you know, ‘what’s this?’ And then away she went – she was a real rock-and-roller, and I said to Wayne, “Wayne, hang on a minute, we’re having an earthquake here – I don’t know whether I’ll have to evacuate or what, it’s not getting any better.” And the windows were rattling and clattering [chuckle] – anyway it went on for about … oh, I suppose about a minute. I think it was fairly … ‘bout 4.6 …

Yeah. From all accounts, and I have this from the technician who was actually on at that particular stage, you became a whiter shade of pale, I believe.

[Chuckle] Yes. [Chuckle] Well I went through the 1931 shake; I was in Gisborne then, and I don’t fear earthquakes but I have a lot of respect for them. I don’t like them at all because … okay, they start gently, and they get a little bit worse and a little bit worse, and you think, ‘Gosh’, you know, ‘is this going to get any worse or get better?’ Fortunately that night it got better.

Over the years you’ve been doing the programme, one of the things you’ve been talking about is road safety. You’ve been I guess waving that banner for what, forty-one years – have you ever been involved in a serious accident yourself?

No. No, never. I imagine it’s … well I know from people I’ve spoken to … met people who’ve had a bad accident it’s a traumatic experience for them. It’s something they never get over – never. That’s if they get over it at all.

The road toll of course at the moment is horrifying … shocking, isn’t it. What do you think is the main cause of that road toll?

Booze. No doubt about it. I don’t suggest that everybody is driving on the road drunk. And the real drunk, he’s not the one that causes all the trouble – I mean, he’s wandering all over the road and everybody gets out of his way. But it’s the fellow that’s had a few, thinks he’s pretty good and of course he exceeds the speed limit and takes risks, and does some dangerous overtaking and so on. But the Ministry of Transport have played this down for years and years and years, but I reckon eighty percent – the Ministry of Transport say fifty percent, but I reckon that eighty percent of the accidents are alcohol related.

What about the booze bus? I mean that’s out on the roads now – is that going to make a bit of difference, coming down hard on drinking and driving?

I don’t think so, no.

Do you think people now though are starting to … is the message starting to sink in?

No. No. The road toll’s getting worse. No, I don’t think the message is getting in at all.

Sad part about it is that we’re heading towards Christmas, we’re heading towards a long holiday period – a lot of people that we’re talking to right now, people that maybe are listening, are not going to be around in the New Year.

It’s possible. But one good thing I think, is the introduction by the booze people is [of] the low alcohol booze, both spirits and beer. That’s good.

Robbie, over the time that you’ve been broadcasting, has there been any particular highlight?

Yes, it was in 1986 when I went to Wellington and Sir Paul Reeves on behalf of Her Majesty presented me with the QSM, the Queen’s Service Medal. That was for service to the motoring public. Daily Telegraph set that up; they nominated me. But when anybody’s nominated for an award they’re not nominated for a knighthood or anything like that, they are simply nominated for an award, and it goes to the Prime Minister’s Department; and it’s supported by letters of recommendation from four or five local prominent people. And a small Cabinet committee decides, ‘Okay, we’ll give him a knighthood … no we won’t, we’ll give him an MBE or OBE or a QSM’, or whatever. But yes, that was a highlight of my career.

Of course, with ‘Motoring with Robbie’, you always finish off with a funny story. How did that all begin?

Oh, well I thought, ‘Well there’s a lot of technical stuff in the programme’; and probably quite a lot of people are not particularly interested in their cars, especially housewives, and they wouldn’t be listening very intently but they would listen to a story. Anybody … anybody will listen to a story, and so I popped that in at the end. Broadcasting people didn’t like the idea when I suggested it – you know, they conjured up thoughts of sexy stories and racial strife … [Chuckle]

How difficult was it for you to find clean jokes?

Sometimes it took me longer to find a suitable joke than it did to prepare the whole programme.

So where did you get all your jokes from?

Got them from everywhere, all over the show. But there was a magazine, an American magazine put out called ‘The Excavating Engineer’ and that had a page – the last page – called ‘Not in the Contract’, and gee, some of those were funny. The Ministry of Works used to take it; it was a monthly magazine and they let me tear out the back page and I used to use those, and … oh heck, there’d be about ten to a page, I suppose.

Get a lot of response from those funny stories?

Oh yes – yes, too right; meet people in the street and as soon as they’d see me they’d start doubling up with laughter. But sometimes I’d think, ‘Well’, you know, ‘what will I say, anyway?’ And sometimes it was, you know, quite a corny joke that they thought so funny.

Have you got one for us this morning, Robbie?

Yes. [Chuckle] It’s an Aussie joke; it’s about an American firm that was drilling for oil in the outback. The Yanks had all the top jobs on the project but there were a few Aussies employed there as labourers, you see. And one of the Aussies – he was working on the rig and he accidentally dropped a hammer down the shaft, and any further drilling was quite impossible until the hammer was removed. And a lot of time and effort and money went into getting this blessed thing out of the shaft, and when the shaft was eventually cleared the boss called all the workers to a meeting and he ceremoniously presented the guilty Aussie with the hammer. He said, “I’d like you to accept this as a memento of your time here. Every time you look at it, it’ll remind you of the trouble and expense you’ve caused through your stupid carelessness, and it will also remind you of what a good job you’ve lost through your own idiotic stupidity.” And the Aussie labourer accepted the hammer; he said, “Does this mean I’ve got the sack? Does this mean I’ve got fired?” And the boss said, “Too right you are”, and the Aussie said, “Well this thing’s no bloody use to me any more”, and he tossed the hammer back down the shaft. [Laughter]

Robbie, why did you decide to retire from the programme?

Well really and truly because the modern car has become so technically wonderful it’s reached the stage where it’s beyond the ability of the average do-it-yourselfer or the average amateur to repair … got to take it to the garage.

Robbie, what are you going to do in your retirement?

I don’t know.

Well, I mean you’ve retired twice … this is another time …

Yes. Yes, I have.

Now what are you going to do?

Haven’t got anything in particular lined up, Dave, not really. Do a bit of reading, I suppose.

Good on you. Look it’s been a pleasure talking to you once again, and have a very merry Christmas to you and Alwyn, anyway.

Thank you very much.