Tom Robinson. Photo: John Arnison.
Tom Robinson
John Arnison reflects on meeting an icon of the 1980s
The year is 1978. I am about to leave school and face an uncertain future. Change is in the air. Margaret Thatcher is nipping at the ankles of socialism. Against the background of a London filled with rubbish and Thatcher promising change, Tom Robinson is singing some great songs.
Tom is the singer, songwriter and bassist with the Tom Robinson Band. Established in 1976, their third single, ‘Up Against the Wall’, became a punk classic and in 1978 they released a debut album, Power in the Darkness, which is still admired. Tom, at the time, seemingly had it made. He is gay, does not care who knows it, rich, confident and self-assured.
Move forward thirty-odd years. I am sitting with Tom at the South Bank Centre in London and discussing his connection with Quakerism and its influence on his life. Tom initially talked about his father, who had a scholarship to study theology at Cambridge University, where his faith was tested. He left the course early.
Tom said that his father was curious about faith and spirituality and, while he questioned the orthodox view, had decided to send his children to church. He wanted them to know, in the future, what they where rejecting! Tom sang in the church choir and his father then decided to send his children to a Quaker school in Saffron Walden. Friends offered, for his father, ‘the least obnoxious brand of religion’, and the fact that Quakers did not have creeds seemed to ‘chime’ with his religious uncertainty.
It was an important period in Tom’s life. He talked about the peer pressure to go out with girls. At the time of his education homosexual acts were punishable by law (and this remained so until 1967). There were no role models for him and when he fell in love with another boy he dared not say anything to anyone. Love, he said, should be ‘joyous and life affirming’. Being a homosexual at the time meant a life of shame, secrets and hiding in the shadows. When he was sixteen he confessed that he tried to take his own life. Tom pointed out that sexuality moves and shifts. He now regards himself as bisexual, and seems to be happy and comfortable in his own skin.
Tom described his experience at the Friends School in Saffron Walden as not a happy time, but picked out some particular memories and said that Amnesty International and CND were ‘inspiring’ to get involved with. When he left he said that he put his school experiences to the back of his mind. They remained there for many years until he was in his thirties and living in Hammersmith in London, when he had a chance encounter.
It was during a period of dark days at that time that he walked past Hammersmith Meeting House and read the notice in front of it: ‘Meeting for Worship. Every Sunday 10.30am. All are welcome’. It spoke to him. He described how he then began to attend Meeting and this led to him, during the 1980s and 1990s, to reconnect with his old school. Tom said that he loves the Quaker approach to uncertainly – that you just have to be looking, leaving no stone unturned – and that Friends had no hard party line on gays. This particularly appealed to him.
Tom became a member of the old scholars of Saffron Walden School and started to go to reunions. In the mid 1990s he was invited to be their president. He regarded this as a great honour and felt it drew a line under his unhappy adolescence. Several hundred people came to the reunion and he said it was ‘a chance to lay old ghosts to rest’. The Meeting for Worship on the Sunday following the reunion, Tom said, was ‘electric’. It was great to meet a person who had been the backdrop to my teenage years.
