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Robin Bush was born at Hayes, Middlesex in 1943. His father was first a schoolmaster and then a training college lecturer (in mathematics) and the family moved around quite a bit before settling at Exeter in 1948, transferring to Exmouth a few years later.
His early fascination was with the Dark Ages and his own family history wall-to-wall illiterate farm labourers in Essex and Robin got his first taste for research when studying the history of Exeter School in Devon, founded in 1633, at the age of 13, despite the fact that the bombing of Exeter in 1942 had destroyed most of the school's records. The quest took him to the Public Record Office, then in London's Chancery Lane, to bridge the gaps in the Charity Commissioners' records, as well as to Exeter's superb city archives and Devon's Diocesan records. From then, he was hooked and his first two papers were published by the Devonshire Association before he left school. His researches also took him onto television for the first time for the old TWW (HTV's predecessor) with live interviews broadcast from Cardiff and Bristol.
Robin's dissertation on the life of one previous Exeter School headmaster, the Rev Dr John Lempriere, author of a famous classical dictionary, won him a Trevelyan Scholarship (followed by a Stapledon Exhibition and a state scholarship) when he went up to Exeter College, Oxford, to read inevitably history. Among his contemporaries there were the poet Craig Raine, the broadcaster and journalist Tariq Ali, the marquess of Hartington and the well-known psephologist Professor Ivor Crewe, and he appeared on stage with Terry Jones of Monty Python fame. After graduating he had hoped to go on to do a PhD in the Local History Department of Leicester University but, although he secured a place, he couldn't get a grant. His second choice was archives, and in 1965 he landed the job of assistant archivist at Surrey Record Office at Kingston-on-Thames. He then took up a similar post at Somerset Record Office in 1967 where, on and off, he was to spend the rest of his working life. His time there was punctuated by eight years (1970-78) as assistant editor of the Victoria History of Somerset writing substantial portions of three of its volumes. Thereafter he returned to the record office as deputy county archivist until he took early retirement in 1993.
Robin started writing books on his own account in 1977 three volumes on the history of Taunton, with others on Exmouth, where he grew up, and Wellington. Thereafter he produced a succession of books on the county of Somerset. He has also issued two-hour tapes on which he retells his Somerset stories. His recent researches into early emigration (1620-45) from the South West to New England have led to three volumes of his work being published in Ohio and he has made six speaking visits to the US. On one of his lecture tours, he met George Bush (no relation) at the White House, and in 1987, he explained Somerset's archives to HM the Queen and the duke of Edinburgh. For 12 years from 1984, he had a weekly spot on BBC Radio Bristol and then BBC Somerset Sound, retelling stories of local history and folklore.
Since 'retirement', he has occupied his time as an historian, after-dinner-speaker, lecturer, researcher and, of course, broadcaster. He got involved with Time Team through his long friendship with Mick Aston from the days when Mick was Somerset's first county field archaeologist. Tim Taylor, the producer, used periodically to drop in on Robin at Taunton and drag him off for a pub lunch during which they chewed over possible formats for the programme. Thereafter he participated in the pilot shoot at Dorchester-on-Thames in 1992 and the rest, as they say, is history!
His most memorable Time Team experience was taking the tiller of the reconstructed 17th-century sailing ship, The Dove, while filming in Maryland during the programme's one and only foray to the United States. He also revelled in singing Gregorian plain chant in Downpatrick Cathedral and establishing that the Teignmouth wreck that Time Team explored was unlikely to have been a stray from the Spanish Armada (forcing the museum there to redisplay its finds). Another high spot was at High Worsall when he won the shoot sweepstake on the England-Italy match!
Then there was location filming for the eight programmes of Time Team Extra: one day found him shooting at Mellifont Abbey near Dublin and the next (after a flight to Newcastle and no fewer than three train journeys) at Wharram Percy in wildest Yorkshire. The madness of trying to film a walk around the Stonehenge landscape in mid-January was rewarded by almost unbroken sunshine.
His most frustrating experience was the shoot at Islay in Scotland where, having mugged up the complex story of the Lords of the Isles, the programme turned prehistoric and most of his contribution was cut. There was some consolation in propping up a single-malt-laden bar at Glasgow Airport for three hours with Phil Harding while they waited for their respective flights home.
Last year Robin was seen on Channel 4's Joe Public series, researching the loss of a hat jewel by Henry VIII, and was heard on three episodes of the heritage quiz, X Marks the Spot, for BBC Radio 4.
History is not Robin's only obsession. He has long enjoyed performing in drama, musicals and grand opera throughout West Somerset, and is president of Taunton Operatic Society. Among his most memorable parts have been Tevye in Fiddler on the Roof, Henry II in The Lion in Winter, Thomas Becket in Becket, Long John Silver (complete with live free-range incontinent parrot!) in Treasure Island, the Count in The Marriage of Figaro, Jud in Oklahoma!, Boris in Boris Godunov, Jack Tanner in Man and Superman, Noye in Britten's Noye's Fludde, Alfred Dolittle in My Fair Lady, Petruchio in Kiss Me Kate, the Father in Voyage round My Father, Emil in South Pacific, Bottom in Benjamin Britten's Midsummer Night's Dream, Toad in The Wind in the Willows, the Common Man in A Man for All Seasons, and a host of Gilbert and Sullivan roles. He has also written and narrated son et lumiθres at Taunton Castle (1985, 1987) and at Glastonbury Abbey (1997); and has toured professionally throughout the West Country as the wheelchair-bound Michael Flanders with his friend Chris Ball as Donald Swann in At the Doff of a Hat. Since 1983 he has annually taken over Taunton's Brewhouse Theatre to present his one-man history shows, which he has also taken throughout southern England and as far north as Derbyshire and Lancashire. On three occasions, he has helped to judge the grand finals of the World Public Speaking and Debating Championships (1991, 1994, 1997).
With his wife Hilary, Robin is heavily into antiques and can often be seen browsing round antiques fairs. He loves pre-1750 antique maps of Somerset and pre-1600 maps of the British Isles, early engravings, miniatures, and watercolours. Hilary is committed to 18th-century Worcester porcelain and 19th-century Staffordshire dogs and sheep. Robin is also in the advanced stages of bibliomania, and it is a dull week if a dozen new or second-hand books don't come into the house. It's not a question of where to put the new acquisitions but where on earth they can fit in the next bookcase!
Since May 1997, he has served as a Liberal Democrat county councillor for Somerset, sitting as vice chairman of the county's Information and Leisure Board (administering Somerset's libraries, Record Office, Victoria County History, tourism, IT and the arts) and also as a member of the Education Committee and the Countryside and Heritage Board, with special responsibility for museums. He also serves on the Council of the University of Bristol and as Vice Chairman of the South West Museums Council: grant aiding to all museums from Gloucestershire and Wiltshire westwards to the Scilly Isles.
He has two children: Catherine, who works in the copyright department of Sky Television, and Alex, a holiday rep.
If Robin has a mission in life, it is to make history and the joys of original research accessible to the proverbial man and woman in the street, and Time Team has made this possible on a wider scale than he ever dreamed. To be recognised by Eric Knowles at an antiques fair at Birmingham's National Exhibition Centre and no fewer than three times while on holiday on the Mediterranean island of Rhodes, he found decidedly spooky!
Although he has appeared in the Athelney 10th-anniversary programme since then, Robin Bush ceased to be a regular Time Team contributor after the 2001 series