Monthly Archive: June 2016

Remarks by Graham Robinson on Sark, 21 May 2016

Tim Robinson.

Tim Robinson, one of the commandos who participated in Operation Basalt.

Many thanks to Eric for inviting me to speak this evening at the launch of his excellent book, Operation Basalt.

It’s a great pleasure for me to be here because, as Eric has said, my dad, Tim Robinson, was one of the Commandos involved in the raid.

However, what I would like to say is a bit about dad and who he was rather than talk about the operation itself.

What attracted dad to the Commandos in the first place? A number of things I’m sure but not least a youthful spirit of adventure – remember he was just about 21 when war broke out. Whilst perhaps it feels more than inappropriate to speak about adventure and excitement in the same breath as talking about a bloody and violent war, I’m sure that this will have been one of the factors that drew him to the Commandos and subsequently 2 SAS.

Dad was very much his own man with a lot of confidence in himself – he was athletic, loved football and was extremely competitive. The suggestion that he should volunteer for special operations would, I know, have been irresistible to him.

He hated the spit and polish of the regular soldier and all the bull that went with it. What he saw in the Commandos was an opportunity to get away from all that and to stand on his own two feet – to be in control of his own destiny as much as possible. When I asked him why he left the Berkshire Yeomanry to join something as dangerous as the Commandos he replied that he thought that if he stayed with the Yeomanry they would end up getting him killed – whereas in the Commandos he would have more say in how he did what he was ordered to do. Mind you, as he laughingly added, the Berkshire Yeomanry spent the whole of the war in Northern Ireland and saw no action at all! (more…)