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Robert was born in June 1941 near Malvern. His father, a Royal Marines officer, lived in a sanatorium, having been invalided out of the Navy. Robert nevertheless had a happy childhood. One holiday, his mother took him to Stratford to see several Shakespeare plays which he remembered for the rest of his life.
At fourteen he won a scholarship to Lancing College. From there he wrote to his mother, in a letter that is dated 23rd March 1957: "About a week ago Tim and I went for a walk to the cement works at midnight. During evening school we'd been discussing an essay we'd been set and we were considering "I think therefore I am" - Descarte's a priori statement. But by 9.45 (bedtime) we hadn't thrashed the thing out so we decided to stay up and do so. We were strolling on the Chapel terrace when we looked across the valley and saw the cement-works lit up by floodlights, and so, having a taste for the industrial scene in a romantic sort of way, we went across the Lower Field, along the river, crossed it by the railway bridge and there we were, Nobody seemed to be about so we wandered around quite thrilled. Then we came back and had something to eat in his Pitt, and finally got down to writing a dialogue of proposition and logical conclusion, interspersed with comment. Neither of us took it very seriously, but Lockyer was thrilled - brilliant he said, so he wants us to type out a copy for him."’
Aged 16, Robert won a scholarship to New College Oxford, before qualifying as a barrister and then joining the legal department of the GLC. In 1970 he became the Legal Adviser to the Royal Institute of British Architects, a position with a broad remit he held until he took early retirement at the age of 55.
Although his death was sudden, he saw the whole family (his wife, Bridget – youngest sister of his school friend Christopher Wilkinson, with whom he had been married since 1967, – four children and three grandchildren) the day before he died. He faced his end calmly and with strength.