Robert E. Willock decided in his retirement to write his first novel. Robert was born and educated in Birmingham. He left school at the age of fifteen; his working life included being a printer, licensee, chauffer, security officer and taxi driver. All the above have made him see the absurdities of life from many different angles. People never cease to amaze him.

James Essinger, managing director of The Conrad Press, says:

Robert Willock, who was born on 2 April 1947, passed away on 8 July 2021. At my suggestion that we could display something about Bob here on The Conrad Press website, his wife Mary wrote this moving tribute about Bob and their marriage.

Robert E Willock (informally known as Bob) was an artist, writer, husband, father, granddad and an all-round good guy. As Bob’s cancer got worse, I can remember him saying to me, ‘Just my luck dying with all this Covid-19 carry on, there’ll be no one at the funeral.’ Bob was the go-to eulogy guy: he must have done twenty funerals. As it turned out it was fine: with no restrictions, we had a full house, and we gave this truly amazing man the wonderful send-off he deserved.
Bob and I were together for over fifty years, that’s a long time and still our love for one another only grew stronger every day.
We did many things together… we managed pubs, restaurants and at one point, we were both taxi drivers, that was great fun.

Goodbye my darling boy,

Mary Willock (your loving wife) xx