Mike Esten writes:

Robin’s relationship to the mountains could most succinctly be described as “Tilmanesque”. He seemed quietly comfortable no matter whatever the hardships might be – and he was never to be beaten by a situation. Although I had been on a few short climbing and ski touring trips with Robin, it was a 3 week Scandinavian journey on skis in 1979, led by Alan Blackshaw, when we went from the Arctic Circle to North Cape taking in whatever summits we could on the way, which gave me the real insight into Robin. The journey by road is some 1000km; I do not know the length of our route over the mountains, but I do remember that the penultimate day was 64km and that we were all pretty tired by then. Robin had had more than the rest of us to cope with throughout the trip because, in addition to carrying significantly more years on his shoulders, he also was suffering from a suspected cracked rib and a bad chest infection … but Robin, being Robin, just gritted his teeth and carried on without complaint.

Surprisingly, for such an arduous trip, I remember much talking being done in the evenings. He described to me once how he had got himself fit again for long distance ski-touring after recovering from cancer by attaching bicycle inner tubes to a door frame and exercising his arms as in langlauf by stretching the inner tubes. On another occasion the Swedish Army forced us to stay put for a couple of days as the King was nearby on a hunting trip. The downside of this was that we would have to make up time subsequently to avoid running out of food and fuel. The upside, at least for me, was that Robin and I spent much of the time talking to each other about our respective careers, particularly our early days and the stimuli that had driven us. I was clearly the luckier one in this dialogue, having the privilege of hearing, first hand from this most modest of men, of the forces that propelled him into design, the origins of the famous “Hille” chair and, most sensitively, of his early days with Lucienne and her impact upon his work. Although they worked in different fields of design, they had clearly each fired the other’s work and ambitions. Sadly Lucienne died in January of this year.

Robin had an enormous reservoir of hidden energy which he was able to tap in the mountains, however harsh the circumstances. This was presumably the same driving force in his professional career. Above all, this immense energy and creativity was covered by the most modest and sensitive of human exteriors.