Bob Roberts (folksinger)

Alfred William "Bob" Roberts (1907–1982) was a British folk singer, songwriter, storyteller, bargeman, author, and journalist. He was the last captain of a British commercial vessel operating under sail, and brought to an end a centuries-old tradition.

Alfred William Roberts was born in the village of Hampreston, Dorset where his parents taught in the village school. Roberts's father, who was brought up in North Wales, ran the church choir as well as playing the piano, church organ, melodeon, concertina and fiddle for village dances. These musical interests led Ralph Vaughan Williams to visit him at the village.

Roberts attended Wimborne Grammar School on a choral scholarship. After leaving school at 17, he eventually became a journalist at the Orpington Gazette, before moving to work as a sports reporter for the Daily Mail on Fleet Street. Robert found it difficult to settle at job at the Mail, and twice took off on long sea voyages. Finally he left the newspaper to work on a Thames sailing barge. Apart from a short stint as a sub-editor at the East Anglian Daily Times in the late forties, Roberts would work on eight barges over the next 35 years, initially as a mate and on his final five boats, as skipper. His other voyages at sea would take him to the West Indies, Ascension Island, West Africa and Brazil.

In 1940 Roberts married his wife, Amelia or ‘Toni’, whom he had first met in the late 1920s, and in 1949 they moved to Pin Mill, on the River Orwell. And it was while working at East Anglian Times that F.T. Everard and Sons offered Roberts the captaincy of the Cambria, the Thames Sailing Barge he was to make famous.

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