It is with great sadness I find myself writing a tribute to Bobbie, who died a few weeks ago after a seemingly minor fall.
I first met Bobbie soon after she arrived at Keele University in the autumn of 1981, a year after my arrival there. My diary doesn’t mention her until we got it together a couple of years later…I’ll come to that.
I first noticed her just a few weeks after she arrived, as she was to be seen driving a massive Jaguar car around the campus; an unusual sight at Keele, to say the least.
I discovered later that her dad, Don, who was mostly working overseas in those days, had encouraged Bobbie to take the car to Keele while he was away, as he thought that vehicle was more at risk standing idle in Wallasey than it would be in use at Keele. Bobbie was very self-conscious about driving a Jag around the campus – if nothing else it was an incongruous mismatch of big car and small person.
Bobbie soon downscaled to a Citroen Dyane – a far more “Bobbie” car than her dad’s Jag.
In a way, this Jag story is a helpful analogy with Bobbie’s essence. Bobbie’s intellect and influence was huge, in contrast with her slight size, light-wearing of her intellect and general low-key demeanour.
Although we were both studying law…in Bobbie’s case with politics, in mine with economics…I don’t believe we ever crossed paths in tutorial groups. But Bobbie did “hang out” with people in my outer and latterly inner circles.
For example, I remember Bobbie going out with Jonathan (Jon) Rees in those earlier days, perhaps her first year, perhaps her second. Jon had been one of my first term pals, part of our Princess Margaret street theatre “rebel troupe”:
Bobbie gets her first mention in my diary in October 1983, as part of a rather crazy first few days of term:
Ashley Fletcher’s name comes up around that time and I do remember that Bobbie was part of Ashley’s circle, as was I. I also remember Ashley saying to me, soon after Bobbie and I got together:
If I didn’t know you two better, I’d think that the two of you have got together…
…exactly the same words he’d used to fish for information on me and Liza getting together the year before!
Anyway, Ogblog is awash with pieces about stuff that Bobbie and I got up to – especially in that 83/84 year, but also a great deal subsequently. Prior to writing this piece, 85 pieces are tagged “Bobbie Scully” and there are many diary entries from the late 1980s that I haven’t yet excavated/Ogblooged.
Here is a smattering of links to favourites:
My Machiavellian plan had been for Bobbie to run for sabbatical Education & Welfare Officer role once we knew that good people had been elected to the other sabbatical roles (Bobbie would have been brilliant at it). But Bobbie out-Machiavelli-ed me – who’d have thought that possible?:
We did a lot of studying together after those elections…which mostly comprised Bobbie studying for most of the night, and me staying awake long enough to do enough. We also had the odd break together. I was terrible at revision. This piece gives some insight, if anyone ever gets around to reading it:
Once the exams were done, we did a lot of eating, drinking and going to see music and theatre – all interests we threw ourselves into, both together and separately, in the decades that followed.
I recall that the local butcher took kindly to students who wanted to eat high-quality meat and gave him regular business, so it had become my habit during most of that academic year to get sirloin steaks and the like for Bobbie and I to eat at the weekends. I had been self-catering in Barnes for most of my time at Keele, whereas Bobbie remained in Lindsay Hall throughout her three years.
We also ate in the best restaurants around the Potteries (which at that time, on the whole, were not that special). The diary and resulting Ogblog pieces mention some.
In terms of “the arts” – here’s a highlight from just after our finals finished: we came down to London to see Billy Joel at Wembley Arena.
Bobbie was very keen on Billy Joel. I have been struggling to get “Only The Good Die Young” out of my head since I learnt that Bobbie died.
…and the next piece describes one of our favourite “lowlights”. The booking cock-up was entirely my fault, but Bobbie and I had a good few laughs and happy talk about the incident subsequently.
Bobbie and I somewhat went our separate ways during my sabbatical year, but we did spend a few weekends together, one of which included an absolute theatrical highlight for both of us – for me especially – The Pope’s Wedding at The Royal Court.
At the time of writing this piece (a week after Bobbie’s funeral), there are very few Ogblog postings between 1985 and late 1988, as I have yet to read/process most of those elements of my diaries. I’ll be playing catch up on those years over the next few years.
This is a bit tough on Bobbie’s many friends from work, who entered her scene from the mid 1980s and some remain on her scene.
I have, however, already written up the period when I was between qualifying as a chartered accountant and starting my management consultancy career, from late 1988 onwards. This piece from mid November 1988 – covering Bobbie’s birthday, provides some insight into that gang:
A few days later, Bobbie helped to confirm my sense that the Clanricarde Gardens flat that I had been eyeing up was indeed the one for me. Bobbie’s viewing nearly didn’t happen, of course, because Bobbie was always late and we ended up pushing the “second viewing slot” that I had arranged to its very limits.
The story of my wait for Bobbie in The Champions pub, contained in the article linked here and below, is worth the price of admission to Ogblog alone. (Ogblog is free).
Between the mid 1980s and the latter part of 1992, there are a great many theatre, concert, opera, restaurant and dinner party visits with Bobbie written up, and quite a lot still to write up. Even after Bobbie and I split up at the end of the 1980s, and after I had my dreadful back-knack in mid 1990, we still saw quite a lot of each other.
We spent a memorable week in Ireland together in the spring of 1992…
… and we continued to do those social and arts activities together. But Bobbie was less keen on booking such events up well in advance than I was. So we had a deal, which basically meant that I would book stuff in advance knowing that Bobbie might excuse herself if the date became inconvenient. Her side of the deal was to give me as much notice as she could, which she reliably did.
Indeed, it was one of the very best of “Bobbie’s bounce back tickets” that presented me with the opportunity to reciprocate Janie’s hospitality with The Street Of Crocodiles:
Bobbie and Janie always got on well. Bobbie took pains to let me (and separately Janie) know that she thought we were a good fit for each other. Janie was especially struck by the way that Bobbie wore her immense intellect lightly.
I have very few photos of Bobbie – we didn’t much do photos in those days – but this one from our mutual Keele friend, Annalisa’s, wedding, in 1998, is a rather good one:
Very sadly, Stuart, Annalisa’s husband, standing next to Bobbie, also died suddenly and unexpectedly in 2025.
I didn’t see Bobbie all that often over the intervening years – neither Bobbie nor I were brilliant at keeping in touch, but Bobbie & Dave Holland certainly attended more than one of Janie’s famous house parties, before those parties became rarities. Here’s one example:
Other than that, I would occasionally run into Bobbie at The Great British Beer Festival in the Earls Court years of the noughties, when my firm, Z/Yen, tended to have “informal works outings” there most years.
Bobbie and I would also tend to arrange to meet at the occasional Keele alum sessions in London – events that neither of us would much fancy on our own but as part of an excuse to meet up and have a good meal after…that was different:
Latterly, along with Iain Sutherland, Bobbie became an enthusiast for the Gresham Society, within which I have played an active part for a great many years.
Although it wasn’t the last time I saw Bobbie, the 2023 event at the Royal Tennis Court, Hampton Court Palace, which I curated, was one of the last times and was a very special day:
So many decades, so many memories.
Liz Scully’s sisterly tribute at the funeral was very moving and poignant. It didn’t so much focus on the arts and culture side of Bobbie’s being, which I hope my piece does. Instead, it focussed on Bobbie’s work, her involvement with CAMRA, her devotion to Everton FC and her love of her home town, Wallasey, all of which were, of course, major parts of her life.
Liz did also remind everyone that Bobbie was almost always late for appointments (unless it was a football match, a concert or a show). Ogblog is littered with oblique (and not so oblique) references to Bobbie’s tardiness.
Thus it seemed fitting at the funeral, after we all traipsed out into the freezing cold of the Wirral at Frankby Cemetery, that orders came from above – I think it was the local authority health and safety brigade, not Bobbie in excelsis – that there was a delay. We were all kept waiting on the path for some 20 minutes before the graveside ceremony could begin. It seemed fitting.
So there you have it: the late Bobbie Scully, rest in peace.
A lovely tribute to Bobbie, Ian. She was smart, clever and always late!