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Robin was born on 19th August 1941, the eldest of the three children of John and Audrey Birts. He passed away peacefully on 26th January 2024 aged 82 at his home in Todenham, Gloucestershire where he had lived for over 50 years.
A Service of Thanksgiving for his life was held at St Thomas à Becket Church at Todenham, on 30th April.
After prep school at Hillside, Reigate, he came to Lancing, in Head’s House under Housemasters Sam Jagger and Terry Kermode. Telford Shute and I were his contemporaries. Our combined recollection of him is that he was a man of many parts who enjoyed music, the theatre, painting and sport particularly football, tennis and fives. He designed and painted the sets for the Head’s House play Charley’s Aunt. We shared that stage with him when he came up with the idea of dressing up as ladies and dancing The Charleston with other Head’s House captains at the Rag Concert in 1958. Although a modern linguist at Lancing, he went on to Guy’s Hospital in London and practised as a GP in Moreton-in-Marsh, Gloucestershire for his whole professional life.
His brother Peter recalls that “Robin had many talents which his innate modesty helped him to hide very effectively. He was an accomplished oil and watercolour painter, a hands-on carpenter (something he learnt early on from our grandfather) and could play the piano by ear very pleasingly. His love of classical music inspired me to appreciate this art form at an early age. During our childhood in Sussex we relished our country rambles, collecting bird’s eggs and butterflies, as young boys did in the 1950s. He was a good shot, both with an air rifle and a shotgun, and he painstakingly taught me how to use the latter safely, for which I shall always be grateful. In his adult life he became a keen breeder and trainer of black labradors, gaining many awards at field trials, and his love of salmon fishing in Scotland, at which he excelled, confirmed his standing as a true countryman.”
He is survived by his wife Deanne, their children Nicholas, Charles and Henry, six grandchildren, and brother Peter Birts KC, Chairman of the Friends of Lancing Chapel. Robin was always a faithful supporter of Lancing who according to Catherine Reeve was often ‘encouraging us to do better’! He was delighted at the completion of The Chapel. The Birts family has a long association with Lancing. Robin’s father John was an OL, as were several cousins and a nephew Edward Coltart, a joint Captain of the School who sadly died in 2016 at the age of 42.
Richard Rawlings (Head’s 1955-1959)