Friends prepare to raise a glass to pub landlord Bob
Publican was a familiar face behind the bar
A well-known landlord, seen behind various bars since the early 1990s, has died.
Robert ‘Bob’ Walters ran a number of pubs around Maidstone, most recently The Papermakers Arms in Upper Stone Street.
The father-of-four grew up in Allington and spent the 1980s working as an electrician at Aylesford Paper Mills.
By the early 1990s he was managing pubs in and around Maidstone including The Cooper’s Cask, The Druids Arms and The Rose in Tovil.
Soon after, he started work with Nigel Babbington-Brown at Maidstone Snooker Club in Buckland Hill, where he’d spend the next 10 years.
From there he moved to the Style and Winch in Union Street, finally buying his own lease and running The Papermakers Arms until leaving in 2011. On September 17, Bob died after a long battle with illness. He was 54.
Bob’s brother, Mark, recalled two very different tales from their childhood: “When we were very young, I was about five and Rob must have been about three, I fed him some laburnum seeds in the garden. “Apparently they’re poisonous and he was rushed to hospital to have his stomach pumped. “A few years later, whilst on a family holiday, Rob and I were fishing in a nearby river.
“He was upstream from me when I heard a splash. He had fallen in and could not swim. “As he drifted past me I just managed to grab him and pull him out. Not the last time I would save him.”
Friend Hasley Baker added: “Bob was well known in the Maidstone community, much loved and will be missed by all who knew him.”
His funeral will be held today (Thursday) at Vinters Crematorium at 2.45pm
The wake is at Newnham Court.