Daily Mirror (Northern Ireland)
Killer sands.. safest hands
Guide to treacherous bay, dies aged 88
NO one knew the dangerous sands of Morecambe Bay better than Cedric Robinson, the longest-serving Queen’s Guide to the area, who has died aged 88.
In his 56 years in the role he guided half a million visitors across the perilous stretch, including Prince Philip driving a carriage.
He pioneered fundraising crossbay walks, leading 6,000 people a year on the three-hour challenge.
The bay, where 23 Chinese cockle pickers died in 2004, is notorious for quicksand, fast-rising tides, swirling currents and deep tidal channels.
But the walkers were safe with Cedric, who said on his retirement two years ago, at the sprightly age of 86: “I can read the sands like others can read a newspaper.”
Born in nearby Flookburgh, he grew up picking cockles with his fisherman dad.
He said of the bay: “It’s been my life. I left school at 14 and I’ve been here ever since. There’s nothing changes as much as Morecambe Bay. I’ve seen two horses go down in quicksand and tractors disappear in seconds, never to be seen again.”
He got an MBE in 1999 and had honorary fellowships from the University of Central Lancashire and Lancaster University. He was the 25th Queen’s Guide, a role first held in 1548 by a Thomas Hogeson, and handed over in 2019 to Michael Wilson. The job paid £15 a year but came with use of the 700-year-old Guide’s Cottage at Kents Bank, where Cedric lived with wife Olive until she died aged 96 in July. The Guide Over Sands Trust, which supports the role, said he was “now at peace and with Olive, who he missed so much”. It added: “Now, Cedric, it is time to rest your sandy feet and keep an eye on us from up there.”
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