MANY regrets will be felt among Albury-Wodonga’s academic and artistic groups at Bill Robbins’s death.
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In 25 years on the Border, Dr Robbins showed a passion and dedication for an unusual range of things.
On the one hand, he’d be researching convict labour in colonial Australia, while on the other he would be negotiating new wage awards for hundreds of university colleagues.
He taught and wrote how industrial relations had been and should be run and showed another talent by publishing a bright, breezy magazine for creative writers called Codswallop for four years.
Dr Robbins was linked to the visual arts scene through his wife, photographer Karen Donnelly, but in 1996 stepped into the performing arts arena by chairing HotHouse Theatre.
He naturally supported the Flying Fruit Fly Circus, which also embraced his three daughters.
Artists are said to live on through their painting or other works but there is a parallel with people such as Bill Robbins.
His pioneering studies will live on through the internet and academic journals, though it’s doubtful if readers of generations to come will realise the full extent of Bill Robbins’s interests.