Robbie Roberts was the Atlas Laboratory's Administrative Officer for most of its life. He was the third person to be recruited after Jack Howlett and his secretary Synolda Butler. Robbie was renowned for getting things done efficiently and on time. He ran a totally reliable, efficient Group that had responsibility for maintenance, cleaning, security, finance and transport. The Laboratory always looked clean and tidy and visitors were always welcomed with a smile. Bob Churchhouse once wrote Overseas visitors whose plane was diverted from Heathrow to Gatwick could still be sure that the promised driver would nevertheless be there to meet them.
Robbie published a book on his early life called A Wheelwright's War and later a second volume on his time at Atlas.
Jack Howlett's Foreword to the first volume gives some idea of the affection that everybody held for Robbie who worked at the Atlas Laboratory:
Most of us, at least once in our lives, have said: "I could write a book about it", or have been told by our friends that we should write a book about it. Few of us have actually tried to do so and fewer still have got beyond Page 1, for the sad but very real reasons that, first, writing is very hard work (as we only find out when we try) and second, we have to admit that when it comes to the point we don't have much to say. But Robbie - no other name is thinkable - has done it and no one who knows him should be surprised on either of these counts: he has never been afraid of hard work, and he has plenty to say. The one surprise is that a man who, as he himself recognises is essentially shy, should put it all down so fully and so frankly.
It's a fascinating story he tells. From a youngster in the Carriage and Wagon Works of the old London Midland and Scottish Railway at Wolverton (Wolverton where on earth is that? I can hear the question) 56 miles from Euston on the London - Glasgow main line (my first job was with the L.M.S.) to Regimental Sergeant Major; the 8th Army in the Libyan Desert, the Italian Campaign, sorting things and people out in Austria at the end of the war. No heroics - he says he's deliberately not written about the fighting of which he must have had plenty - but an absolutely straight picture of life as it was being lived, mostly in pretty grim times; above all, no parading of the enormous responsibilities he must have been carrying for so much of his time in the army, especially in the last years. But it's from writings like this that real history meaning how people really lived and felt, is recovered; we can learn a lot about life in 18th century England from the account of his walks around the country by that quiet, long-suffering German cleric Pastor Mortiz, and grocery orders and laundry lists have told us more about the past than epic poems.
There are plenty of splendid touches. One that I shall always remember is Robbie's few words about being in hospital in Florence and obviously having a bad time. But what does he remember? - playing housey-housey and having a full house, but couldn't shout out because of the pain -"£5 down the drain".
Another, very different, is his mastering of that evidently formidable horse Schimmel in Austria. I thought I knew Robbie pretty well, but I'd no idea of this prowess in this field.
I was Director of the Computer Laboratory that Robbie writes about in his later pages and I've always known that it was my great good fortune to have him as my Administration Officer. I must be careful here not to turn this into my own memoirs, but I will just say that it was a pioneering project, immensely exciting and rewarding, and that Robbie was as much caught up in it as I was - for that matter, as were all my colleagues in the Lab, computer operators, secretaries, mathematicians, cleaners and all, which was why it was such a delightful place to work in. One of the many splendid things about Robbie was that he would just get things done. He mentions financial control (for which I shall ever be grateful) but there was a lot more; one of our contractors once said to me that if you needed to have the 25 ton crane at 10.17 next Thursday, all you had to do was to tell Robbie and forget about it - it would be there. The smooth working of a scientific institution depends absolutely on a whole range of supporting services, and Robbie saw to it that these were provided, and that they worked.
In many places in his story Robbie expresses his thanks to people he has met and worked with; I can finish by expressing my thanks to him for all that he did for me, and for all of us, in the dozen years we worked together.
Jack Howlett
Oxford, June 1984
After returning to civilian life, Robbie worked in Local Government from 1947 to 1961. On joining the Rutherford Laboratory, he worked as the Local Administrative Officer for the central area of the laboratory including the Directorate and the NIMROD Particle Accelerator. In the Summer of 1962, when it was clear that the Atlas Laboratory was going to happen, Robbie asked Jack if he could be the Administrative Officer for Atlas and Jack agreed as long as Dr Pickavance, the head of the Rutherford Laboratory agreed.
In consequence, Jack, Synolda and Robbie had three offices in building R25 of the Rutherford Laboratory as the embryonic Atlas Laboratory and Robbie ensured that Jack's Office had Director, The Atlas Computer Laboratory on the door.
Robbie was responsible for the series of photographs that were taken as the Atlas Building evolved. He personally took notes of every drain, ducting etc to make sure he knew where everything was when the building was complete.
The air conditioning system was crucial to the uninterrupted running of Atlas. It was shut down every three months for preventative maintenance and Robbie personally crawled through the main trunking to ensure that there were no problems. He made sure that Harwell regularly swept the roads around the building to stop dust getting into the air conditioning system.
Robbie was very keen that all Atlas vehicles were spotless at all times. When Dick Mackey, the senior driver who oversaw this was on holiday, one of the new drivers left the Laboratory bound for the airport with a dirty car. Robbie jumped into the Laboratory's other car and chased after him down the A34 and made him return to the Laboratory. Robbie helped him clean it and then he was allowed to go to the airport. The Admin Group was also fairly resourceful. They bought a small mechanical road sweeper and fitted a snow blade to it so they could their own snow clearing. Then they added a water cart/sprayer to ensure the roads were clean if Harwell forgot.
Robbie received an MBE in March 1973. He worked at the Atlas Laboratory until 1974 when he transferred to Education and training Section at SRC in Swindon and later to the Audit Section. Robbie retired in May 1979; the staff gave him an original piece of glass by Margaret Leach and a book on glass as a leaving present.
