The Daily Telegraph Friday 16 August 2019 *** 27cadets at the RAF College Cranwell,
where he excelled at hockey and
cricket and gained his colours.
In October 1948 he left for Ceylon
(now Sri Lanka) to join No 45
Squadron, the last RAF squadron tooperate the wartime Beaufighter
ground-attack aircraft. After moving to
Kuala Lumpur, the squadron was
heavily engaged in attacking
communist terrorists during the
Malayan Emergency. The ageing
Beaufighters were replaced with the
(unlamented) Brigand and by the end
of his tour of duty in April 1951
Robinson had flown 175 strikes.
Robinson trained as a flying
instructor before joining Nottingham
University Air Squadron. He then
joined the staff at the Central Flying
School before converting to the
Canberra jet bomber.
In February 1956 he was posted to
join No 88 Squadron at Wildenrath on
the Dutch-German border. The
aircraft, with its two-man crew, flew in
the strike/attack role.
On promotion to squadron leader in
1958 he became a squadron
commander at the RAF College
Cranwell where he was responsible for
the development of some 100 flight
cadets on their three-year course. This
was a period that Robinson and hiswife Dru found particularly enjoyable
and rewarding.
After his period in command of No
100 Squadron, Robinson went to the
Far East, responsible for exercise plans
and later for defensive operations.
This was at the time of the
“Confrontation” with Indonesia.
His return to Britain in November
1967 heralded the beginning of a
number of years in staff appointments
at MoD and HQ Strike Command,
involved in bomber and nuclear strike
operations.
In September 1972 the Royal Navy
handed over the airfield at
Lossiemouth in Morayshire to the RAF
and Robinson, by then a group
captain, was appointed as the first
station commander, overseeing the
transfer before the first flying units
arrived. The base became the home for
the first RAF Jaguar unit, a Shackleton
airborne early warning squadron and a
flight of air-sea rescue helicopters.
Robinson flew often and converted
to the Jaguar strike-attack aircraft, the
latest “fast jet” to enter the RAF’s
inventory. With regular detachments of
visiting squadrons taking part in Nato
exercises, Lossiemouth soon became
one of the RAF’s busiest airfields.
In August 1974 he returned to the
RAF College for a third period, this
time as the assistant commandant.
This was a period of considerable
change in the structure of the College
and its training regime.
April 1977 saw him returning to the
bomber role when he became the
senior air staff officer at No 1 (Bomber)
Group, overseeing the training and
operational readiness of Buccaneer
and Vulcan squadrons and the Victor
air-to-air refuelling force. He
continued to fly with these units in to
remain abreast of the latest tactics and
operating procedures.
His final appointment was in the
MoD as the Director General of
Organisation. He was appointed CB
just before his retirement in June 1982.
For the following six years he was the
Director of Welfare at the RAF
Benevolent Fund before working with
the Church Urban Fund. One of his
proudest achievements later in life
was completing an MA in Modern
History when he was in his late sixties.
He never lost his love of cricket or of
the RAF and rarely missed the annual
air marshal’s lunch when the current
Chief of Air Staff gave a briefing on the
state of the RAF.
A man of strong Christian faith,
Robinson was active in church
matters, served on his local parish
council and was a Friend of Wells
Cathedral. His other great interest was
music, especially opera, a passion
which he shared with his wife.
He married, in 1952, Drusilla Bush,
who died last year. Their son and two
daughters survive them.Air Vice-Marshal Michael Robinson,
born February 11 1927, died June 5
2019Cold War bomber pilot who served in V-Force, carrying Britain’s nuclear deterrent in the 1960s
Air Vice-Marshal Michael Robinson
Footballer who opened the scoring for Argentina on the way to victory in the 1986 World Cup final
José Luis Brown
D
AVID BERMAN, who
has died aged 52, was
a musician and poet
who led Silver Jews, a band
whose lo-fi sound
encapsulated a melancholy,
poignant strain of American
indie rock; while they never
came close to being
chart-toppers, they built up
a devoted cult following.
Berman’s work was
underpinned by his
preoccupation with the
lyrics. “I couldn’t rock out
harder than everybody, or
overpower people with
mastery like Jack White of
the White Stripes, so why
try?” he explained. “That’s
why I’ve always worked
harder on words.”
He was born David Craig
Berman on January 4 1967
in Williamsburg, Virginia,
and was brought up in Texas
(in 2015 he changed his
middle name to Cloud
following the death of a
friend and fellow-musician,
Dave Cloud).
When David was seven
his parents divorced, and he
moved to Dallas with his
father, who worked as a
lobbyist for tobacco, alcohol
and firearm companies.
Richard Berman was once
described on the television
programme 60 Minutes as
“the booze and food
industries’ weapon of mass
destruction”; his calling
would cast a long shadow
over his son’s life.
David attended the
University of Virginia,
where he met Stephen
Malkmus and Bob
Nastanovich. They formed a
band, Ectoslavia, which
fused melodic pop with
distorted electronics.
After graduating, they
moved to Hoboken, New
Jersey, Berman working as a
security guard at the
Whitney Museum of
American Art in Manhattan.
In 1989 they renamed
themselves Silver Jews and
began recording offbeat,
haunting tracks.
Malkmus and
Nastanovich formed a
second band, Pavement,
with more of an eye on the
big time, and they began
cutting a swathe through
the American indie scene
(eventually also making
their name in Britain).
Silver Jews, meanwhile,
recorded some well-
received ultra lo-fi EPs, and
Berman enrolled in a
graduate writing
programme at the
University of Massachusetts
Amherst.
In 1994 Silver Jews’ first
album, Starlite Walker, was
released, and there were five
more over the next 14 years,
though mainstream successwas never on the cards given
Berman’s reluctance to play
live.
While recording the
second album, The Natural
Bridge (1996), Berman, who
was struggling with drug
and drink problems, had to
be admitted to hospital
suffering sleep deprivation;
the band’s drummer at the
time, Rian Murphy, recalled
him as looking like “a man
who was being haunted by
ghosts while he was
singing”.
In 1999 Berman published
a well-received poetry
collection, Actual Air, but in
2003 he nearly died of a
drugs overdose while
staying in the hotel suite in
which Al Gore had awaited
the result of the 2000
presidential election. “I
want to die where the
presidency died,” Berman
said at the time.
Although Berman did
eventually tour with Silver
Jews, including dates in
Britain and Ireland, in 2009
he split up the band – in
protest, he said, at his
father’s work, which was, he
said, “my gravest secret”,
“worse than crack
addiction”. The band, he
said, was “too small of a
force to ever come close to
undoing a millionth of all
the harm he has caused”.
Silver Jews’ farewell gig
took place in a cave 300ft
below ground at
McMinnville, Tennessee.
Berman thereafter retreated
into the life of a recluse,
devoting much of his time to
writing a blog, “Menthol
Mountains”.
He re-emerged in 2019
with a new project, Purple
Mountains, backed by the
indie-folk band Woods, and
was due to embark on a tour
on August 10.
Berman, who committed
suicide, is survived by his
wife Cassie (née Marrett),
who played bass guitar on
Silver Jews’ later records,
but from whom he
separated last year.David Berman, born
January 4 1967, died
August 7 2019David Berman
Reclusive musician who fronted
the indie rock band Silver Jews
Split up the band in protest at
the work of his father, a lobbyistA
IR VICE-MARSHAL
MICHAEL ROBINSON,
who has died aged 92, was
a Cold War bomber pilot
who served in a number
of overseas theatres.
On May 1 1962 Robinson, by then a
wing commander, was tasked with
re-forming No 100 Squadron, a famous
Second World War bomber squadron.
Flying from Wittering, near
Peterborough, the unit was equipped
with the Victor 2 nuclear bomber and
formed part of the RAF’s “V”-Force,
which then carried the responsibility
for the United Kingdom’s Strategic
Nuclear Deterrent and provided the
major part of Britain’s contribution to
Nato’s retaliatory strike plan.
To provide a credible deterrent,
each V-bomber squadron had to
provide one aircraft and one crew at 15
minutes “Quick Reaction Alert” (QRA)
at all times, with the aircraft
positioned on a readiness platform at
the end of the runway. Robinson’s first
task was to supervise the training of
his crews to reach a combat-readiness
stage before the squadron took up its
Nato nuclear role, including QRA.
To reduce the vulnerability of the
force in times of tension, some aircraft
were dispersed from Wittering to
specially prepared airfields elsewhere
in Britain, and the dispersal exercise
was practised regularly. Despite
having wider command
responsibilities, Robinson, with his
own crew, took his turn to be on
15-minutes readiness.
A feature of V-force operations was
making frequent long-range
navigational training sorties. In
February 1964 Robinson, accompanied
by two other Victors from his
squadron, took off from Wittering and
headed for Singapore and on to
Australia and New Zealand. The three
aircraft were the main RAF
representation at the RNZAF
International Air Force day and
Robinson demonstrated the powerful
Victor with a spectacular take-off and
a series of manoeuvres. After the
event, the three aircraft returned to
Wittering having staged through
Australia, Aden and Malta.
Early in 1964, the Victors were
modified to carry the Blue Steel
air-launched, rocket-propelled
standoff missile, designed to be
released some distance from the
target, which gave the launch aircraft
a greater degree of survivability.
With the squadron fully operational
with its new capability, Robinson
relinquished command in November
the same year.
The son of a doctor, Michael
Maurice Jefferies Robinson was born
in Belfast on February 11 1927. The
family soon moved to Putney in
London and later young Michael went
to King’s School, Bruton. After six
months at Queen’s College, Oxford, he
enlisted into the RAF as the war was
coming to an end. In July 1946 he
joined the first post-war entry of flightRobinson: below
left, after making
his first solo flight in
a Jaguar strike
attack aircraft;
earlier he had
supervised the
training of
V-bomber crews to
a state of combat
readinessJ
OSÉ LUIS BROWN, who has died
aged 62, scored Argentina’s
opening goal in the 1986 World
Cup final, helping the team to
victory in a tournament in which, just
a few weeks earlier, he had not
expected to play.
A tall, commanding central
defender with an eye for goal, Brown
had a reputation in Argentine football
for not quitting. Yet during the two
seasons prior to the World Cup he had
been severely hampered by an injury
to his right knee. He had played only a
handful of games, and shortly before
the competition, at the age of 29, he
was let go by his club, Deportivo
Español of Buenos Aires.
Nevertheless, he was included in
the squad, as cover for the sweeper
Daniel Passarella, by the Argentine
manager, Carlos Bilardo; Brown had
been Bilardo’s captain at Estudiantes
when they had won the domestic
championship. In the new climate of
open criticism that prevailed after the
fall of Argentina’s junta, the
newspapers were forthright in their
condemnation of his selection.
Indeed, they held out little hope for
the team’s prospects, citing internal
division and comparing unfavourably
Bilardo’s tactical style with the
flamboyant approach of his
predecessor, Cesar Menotti, who had
led Argentina to World Cup victory in- Although by 1986 Diego
Maradona had fully matured, four
years earlier opponents had found it
easy to stifle his creativity and provoke
his volatility. Some Argentine sports
journalists were said to have booked
their return flights from Mexico, the
tournament host country, for after the
first round.
Maradona later recalled the
contribution that Brown made to team
spirit in training for the competition,
despite not expecting to play. On flights
to preparatory warm-up games, Brown,
he remembered, would exercise his
knee in the aisle of the aircraft.
Then on the eve of the World Cup,
Passarella was ruled out with
enterocolitis. Aided by the
ministrations of the team doctor,
Riccardo Eccheverria, Brown would
play every minute of the next seven
matches in a span of under a month.
After getting through the group
stage undefeated and then overcoming
Uruguay, Argentina played England in
the quarter-finals. Brown later called it
“the hardest match of the
tournament”. Thanks to Maradona,
and the “Hand of God”, Argentina
prevailed for a win hailed by their fans
as revenge for defeat in the Falklands
War. More mesmerising play by
Maradona wrought triumph over
Belgium and earned a place in the final
against West Germany.
Brown admitted later that he had
not slept the night before the match,
spending it restlessly turning in his
bed, looking at the ceiling and at the
photographs of his children. The game
was staged at the Azteca Stadium in
Mexico City, before more than
100,000 spectators, mostly locals
rooting for the Germans to humble
their fellow Latins.
But it was Argentina, and Brown,
who seized the initiative first. When
Maradona was fouled near the edge of
the penalty area, Jorge Burruchaga
swung over a fast, curving free-kick.
Its flight was completely misjudged by
the German goalkeeper Harald
Schumacher, and it sailed over him as
he came to take it.“I was really good at heading and I
headed it really hard,” observed
Brown, who shoved aside Maradona to
thump the ball into the net with a
jump at the back post. He celebrated in
memorable fashion, falling to his
knees in ecstasy mixed with disbelief.
It was the only goal he would score in
his 36 international matches.
Early in the second half, Brown
dislocated his shoulder following a
collision with Norbert Eder. Unwilling
to risk disrupting the defensive back
line, he refused to be substituted,
playing on through increasing pain.
He bit a hole in his shirt into which he
hooked two fingers in an effort to
minimise the joint’s movement,
though to little avail.
Argentina, however, were two goals
up and appeared to be in no trouble,
until the Germans scored twice in a few
minutes to make for a tense climax. It
was Maradona who had the last say,
setting Burruchaga free to run on and
score the winning goal six minutes
from time. Brown and his team-mates
returned home to a heroes’ welcome.
José Luis Brown was born on
November 10 1956 at Ranchos in
Buenos Aires province. He was a direct
descendant of a Scotsman, JamesBrown, who had emigrated from
Greenock in 1825 and become a
farmer.
Several of James’s grandchildren
had been stars of Argentina’s first
national teams and of the Alumni, the
club founded by another Scot,
Alexander William Hutton, who had
gone to Argentina to recover from
tuberculosis. Considered the father of
Argentine football, it was he who had
introduced the quick passing style
then favoured in Scotland over the
kick-and-rush charges approved of in
England.
From the age of three, José in effect
grew up in a form of boarding school,
as his parents were at work all day. By
the time he was 14 he had been
scouted by the Estudiantes club, based
in La Plata, near the capital and some
50 miles from Ranchos.
Finding it increasingly difficult to
raise the money to travel there and
back, he decided in his early teens to
move to La Plata on his own. His
courage paid off when Bilardo gave
him his debut for the club at 18.
Nicknamed Tata, or “Papa”, he
played for Estudiantes more than 300
times, mainly as a sweeper, captaining
the side to title wins in 1982 and 1983.
His team-mates included Alex Sabella,
formerly of Sheffield United and Leeds.
Brown then had a spell in Colombia
before joining Boca Juniors in 1985,
only for his injury problems to begin.
After his World Cup triumph he
signed for the French club Brest, then
played in Spain with Murcia, and for
Racing Club back in Argentina, before
hanging up his boots in 1989. He had
played 460 matches and scored 46
goals.
He subsequently had a long career
in management, most notably as
assistant coach to the Argentina
Under-23 side – which, featuring
Lionel Messi and Sergio Aguero, won
gold at the Beijing Olympics in 2008.
Latterly, however, he had been
afflicted by Alzheimer’s disease.
He is survived by his second wife
Viviana, by a son of their marriage, and
by a son and daughter from his first
marriage.José Luis Brown, born November 10
1956, died August 12 2019Brown, left, tussles
with the England
defender Terry
Butcher during the
1986 World Cup
quarter-final: it
was, said Brown,
Argentina’s ‘hardest
match of the
tournament’MIKE KING/ALLSPORTGARY WOLSTENHOLME/REDFERNSObituaries
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