Send-off hits the right note for musician Bob
BBC RADIO PRESENTER WAS ‘LOVED BY MANY’
LOVED ones, colleagues and friends laid to rest a well-known musician and radio presenter ‘loved by many people.’
Multi-talented Robert Rowe, fondly known as Bob, worked on the airwaves of BBC Radio Nottingham for more than a decade, covering sport and music. He died on Monday, January 25, at the age of 74 having been diagnosed with liver cancer.
His funeral took place yesterday. Before the service, Melanie Rowe, 70, his wife of 39 years, said: “He was obviously a hugely talented guy, he was a very kind guy, loved by many people and I think, really, we just want to give him the best send off we can.”
His daughter Fiona Russell, 45, said she was “very honoured and lucky to have him as my dad”.
The musician, who lives in Gedling, said: “I knew him simply as dad and to Isabel, grandad.
“He was always kind, caring and supported me through the good times and the bad.
“Many people over the years made the observation that I was a chip off the old block, which always made me feel proud.”
Mrs Rowe, a retired civil servant, of Fleming Drive, Carlton, spoke of some of the arrangements for the service.
She said: “He had three areas in his career, there was the radio, photography and his music career.
“So there are representatives from each of those careers.
“And then also neighbours who’ve been very kind – and family of course.
“And also one representative from the Rose Singers, which is the choir I belong to, because Bob helped them with sound as well.
“Last year, on January 26, we did a big concert at Lark Hill Village, the retirement home.
“Bob mic’d all the singers up and mic’d the grand piano up and it was the best sound they ever got.
“He used all his technical sound knowledge to make the choir sound really good.
“The whole service is around Bob, he produced a CD called Deja Vu.
“It was called that because they’re covers so people have seen them before.
“But on them they’re instrumentals and Bob is playing everything.
“And so all the songs in the service are from that CD.
“The exit music for the service is Bob playing his guitar, he’s playing Bye Bye Blues – and Fiona, his daughter, is singing on the track, she’s doing the vocals.”
After Bob fell down the stairs last year, fracturing a number of bones, medics detected a tumour in his right arm and found it to be secondary cancer.
After a biopsy in December, they later found the primary liver cancer – and, by the time they discovered it, it was too late for him to have chemotherapy.
Mr Rowe, born and bred in Hucknall, who recorded and produced several records, featured in the 1970 Elvis Presley film That’s the Way It Is.
At Radio Nottingham he became a well-known interviewer and presenter of music and sports programmes.
He also worked for BBC Radio Derby and entered the world of wedding photography, becoming president of the Nottingham and Notts Photographic Society and being awarded the Fenton Medal by the Royal Photographic Society for his services to digital photography.
Martine Hamilton Knight, 52, an architectural photographer who was taught by Mr Rowe, recalled her time later working with him.
The senior lecturer at Nottingham Trent University said he taught her “how to use digital technology to process photography as opposed to wet chemistry”, adding: “I was transitioning my (architectural photography) business from a thoroughly analogue platform to a digital platform.”
They launched a photography school with Mrs Hamilton Knight’s husband, Paul Mottram, 53. Mrs Hamilton Knight said: “His photography teaching manner was easy-going, which made him easy to get on with. He was very affable. “We have taught thousands of people to enjoy their cameras, they are not just skills – they’re lifelong skills that they have given so many people pleasure during this last awful year.” John Holmes MBE, a presenter and journalist who has worked for the BBC for 50 years, added: “I first met Bob when he joined us at Radio Nottingham in the early days of the station. He was truly a man for all seasons.
“I was already aware of his success as a guitarist in local bands but he came to join us to work behind the scenes at the station. He was a good technician and he soon established himself working on our sports output, even taking on the presenter role for matches.”
He was a hugely talented guy, loved by many people.
Melanie Rowe