Robert James

Robert and Linda met one night at a ballroom club when he asked her to dance. It was only a relatively short time later that they married in her local village church. Robert’s family, including aunts, uncles, his sister and grandma took Linda into their lives.

When they were first married they lived in a small, terraced house which they rented. They had bought some furniture, but the rest of it was given. What served as the kitchen, had a black cast iron fireplace with an oven.

At this time Linda practised her singing with an accompanist until she had a programme of songs to take her through a 45-minute performance. Eventually she found an agent to give her an audition and he took her on. Robert had his engineering diploma, and he worked in the iron and steel industry, so at first Linda did singing engagements only at weekends. Soon she was earning more money than Robert earned all week. Other agents were trying to get her on to their books offering work all over Britain. And they decided to go for it and Robert gave in his notice. Everyone thought they had gone mad. The following day Linda’s new manager rang her to say that he'd booked her for the next two years. Linda tended to be the supporting artist for an act more well known. As they arrived with just minutes to spare she hardly got to meet them. For nine years they continued on but sometimes had offers from which she backed away.

At that point Linda had come to a point of total burnout and they cancelled everything and went home. They told no one and for a time lived on savings. Then Robert was offered a job which used all his design skills which led to a very different life that came to be all absorbing for both of them.

They moved to the Isle of Axholme and it was here that Robert’s life really took off in a wonderful way. Robert started a new job as a designer with a small agricultural firm. Here he was in his element and soon promoted. This meant he travelled away from home most of the time. He was sent to inspect machines that the firm made for farming estates including Scotland close to Balmoral. After a few years he was project manager with a team of  men and his own factory, and he designed a huge machine the first of its kind. “The Pathfinder” was built to go at twice the speed of other machines covering vast areas of land. Each one was made to order, one went to Texas one to Russia, one to the Queen's estate, and the Pathfinder was put on central display at Earls Court. It received the Queen's award.

Years later the firm sold out to ICI and Robert set up his own design business. He never had to advertise because work just flooded in. Linda found herself having to do the accounts and tax records and she was shown how to set out a spreadsheet to the standard of Inland Revenue tax inspectors, and came to take pride in it. It was hard to keep up with Robert as he had many jobs going at the same time. He designed something for advanced medical surgery, then an under gradient for a motorway, and on it went. He designed an improvement to hip replacements to stop them slipping out of place, he didn't stop, sometimes working until midnight.

As time passed they closed their business and took their. Sadly, time took its toll and Robert's health declined.