Robert John Eccles
né Terrence Ryan
aka Robb Deka, aka Robb Shenton
(20.10.1942-7.7.2023)
| Parents | Tess | Adoptive – Robert Kitchener Eccles | ||
| Siblings | Terry | Peter | Yvonne | |
| Partners | Maggie (Divorced) | Sheila Dewick | ||
| Children | Matt | Julia |
Robb (2nd from right) with Maggie & friends
Maggie, Matt & Rob
Rob & Sheila
Julia’s Eulogy
‘Robbo’ was born in Ulverston, Cumbria as Terrance Ryan on the 20th of October 1942. He had two half-brothers, Peter and Terry and a half-sister Yvonne. It wasn’t until the 1980s that his birth mother, Tess Ryan, , through an agency, contacted Rob and he learned that he had siblings.
His birth mother gave him up and he was adopted three years later by Mary & Robert Eccles and he became Robert Eccles Jr.
Mary Eccles sent Rob to piano lessons, the start of his life-long love of music. She died when Rob was fifteen.
He left home aged just seventeen, and moved to Liverpool where he joined a band. The band toured and played in Germany at the Star club, where the Beatles also performed. He was part of the ‘Mersey’ sound, made famous by the Beatles, Jerry & the Pacemakers and others. He performed on the same bill as a number of big names such as Ray Charles and the Everly Brothers. He also performed at the prestigious Marquee Club in the summer of 1967.
Over the years he was in, or formed a number of different bands… such as: The Bobcats (later The Puppets), Nashpool, The Prestons, The Crusaders, The Falcons, David John & The Mood, The Strangers, Robb Deka and the All Stars, The Third Eye, Flip & The Dateliners, Robb Shenton & Shandy & Robb Shenton and the Shentones.
He moved to London aged 19 where he met and later married Maggie and where son and daughter, Matthew and Julia were later born.
After marrying he gave up trying to be a full-time musician, although he continued to do a lot of sessions work, especially for the famous producer Joe Meek, usually under his stage name of Robb Deka. He had worked with Joe in the 1960s such as recording the tracks, ‘Shakin with Linda’ and ‘Sweet Mary’ when Rob was with The Nashpool. In 1980 Robb recorded the tribute song ‘Lonely Joe’. It was number one in the Independent Records chart, in the New Musical Express for about 100 weeks!
In his forties, Rob went to Middlesex University and was awarded his degree in Social Science. He worked as a social worker in child care, specialising in child abuse cases.
Because of this, when Esther Ranson was starting up Child Line she invited him to help her set it up. He was asked to do a couple of sessions at Childline and then got offered a job as their first Head of Counselling Operations.
Rob never gave up music entirely, every week-end he played in a band with Maggie’s brother Paul.
Rob was always interested in politics and was a shop steward when he worked in the Post Office and he stood in local elections, including standing in Margaret Thatcher’s ward in her Finchley constituency.
In the 1990’s, Maggie & Rob divorced and he met Sheila Dewick and they lived happily together until Sheila developed dementia and had to move in to a care home.
Rob never gave up music and late in life was still recording. He released a six-track mini-album ‘Rock, Roll, Jump & Jive‘ that pays homage to the records he listened to as a teenager. His producer said he wanted him to write sings as well as record covers. At the time he was frying eggs and wrote a song – She’s Long, Long Gone. The producer nick-named it the ‘Fried Egg song’.
Rob was a loving father and grandfather to his granddaughters Jade & Eve.
Anyone who met and knew Rob would all say the same thing about him… he was a born entertainer, always telling funny stories and a cracking a seemingly endless supply of jokes, he liked to laugh and make others laugh too. His friends and bandmates tell stories of the antics he would get up to on stage and off. Life was a stage for Rob whether it was to perform music or just amuse his friends.
Matt’s Eulogy
I’m going to attempt to err on the side of levity and bring you some of his greatest hits that weren’t consigned to tape, vinyl, CD or audio streams. You’ll have heard many of these, more than once probably, be it working on stage with him, in interviews or just spending time in his company.
It’s what he would have wanted, and during one of our conversations he gave me the all-clear to drop in some of his favourite jokes.
So first and foremost, I’m going to take this off….in case there’s a fight. It’s not that well known that dad started his career in showbusiness in the circus. This was back when circuses had lions, elephants and the like. He told me his favourite act was the trapeze artists who always opened the show. Sadly, they were incontinent, but they did warm the crowd up! He also looked up to the human cannonball, who was the top earner on the bill. £25 a week back then, plus a bit of mileage! Although he didn’t have an act as such, they kept him on for a few years as he was the only one who could get the circus tent back in the bag.
As we all know, he progressed into becoming a musician and vocalist. He paid his dues in lots of bands, starting in Preston via the Star Club in Hamburg, the Marquee Club in London and everywhere in between. I was going through his archives just yesterday and found a copy of Sounds from the 19th July 1980. If you recall, they used to publish the charts from various styles of music. That week the number ones were Love Will Tear Us Apart, by Joy Division in the alternative chart. Xanadu topped the British singles chart and Paul McCartney had invaded the US again with Coming Up. In the Rock ‘n’ Roll chart, number one was Lonely Joe, by Robb Shenton. So he was in good company.
Rock ‘n’ Roll was his passion, his calling even, and I want to share two examples of how he would weave iconic names into our world. When Ju and I were in our early teens, we persuaded Mum and Dad to get us a couple of Terrapins. Now, did we get a chance to name them? Of course not, they were Phil and Don from the minute they hit the water. In fact, they even fell out at one point, before embarking a big reunion tour later on!
I took him out to grab a KFC (that man loved a piece of fried chicken) and Stormzy was on the radio. He was saying how terrible the song was and that anyone could do that. I explained how Stormzy had freshened up British music and brought grime into the mainstream. He thought for a minute and said: “Oh, like Ricky Nelson, you mean?” I guess so! I guarantee you’ll never hear those two artists mentioned in the same sentence ever again. At home, he perfected the art of watching the news or a western with both eyes closed. If we turned the channel, you’d hear: “Oi. I was watching that.” A proper life skill!
As I said he loved his grub – We took him to Margate for a change of scene and some sea air, at that point he was very reluctantly using a walking frame – but being upright over image rights won the day. When he spotted the seafood stall on the front, he would’ve given Usain Bolt a run for his money. In fact, we exported pots of jellied eels, back up to Nottingham. They didn’t last long. As for an egg banjo – don’t get me started. The story goes that this fried egg sandwich got its name because after one bite yolk would explode onto your clothing and you’d be strumming it off like playing the said instrument. Let me tell you, his shirts never failed to live up to the billing.
Paul said to me recently, that he thought Dad would burn out, not fade away. Sadly, that was the reality, bedbound in his final 18 months. We said goodbye on at least three occasions and looking back we were lucky to have those opportunities, to tell him all the things that were important to us and to him.
During a particularly nasty turn over a weekend, we dashed down and held a nighttime vigil, played his songs, whispered terrible jokes and told him that we loved him. That was Easter weekend and in true Shenton style he defied all logic by pulling through, claiming he was hungry before devouring a full English breakfast. Forget Elvis 68, that’s a comeback special! Ultimately, he wasn’t ready to go, in fact, he knew the date he was going to die – A judge had told him!
I know! He was a joker, my dad, and loved rhymes and the like – She was only the grave diggers daughter, but she’d lie under any old sod! If there was a boy standing on a burning deck, he was all over it especially if he was playing cricket and he enjoyed limericks particularly if they took place in Nantucket! So, if you’ll indulge me, I’ve put one together in his honour:
An old Rock ‘n’ Roller called Robb
Stood out from the rest of the mob
A proud Northern bloke
Who loved a good joke
He’d want you to laugh and not sob
And I’ve cleaned that up for the occasion!
When it’s all said and done what did I learn from my Dad? I know what thought did – he followed a muck cart and thought it was a wedding. That was almost his catchphrase when I was growing up. I learnt that courtesy costs nothing, he was big on manners, and instilling that value has stood me in good stead throughout my life so far. He also imparted that the best things in life are free son. Usually said to me with a wink, and a paper under his arm heading for the little boys room. Best of all, whatever we achieved, however seemingly insignificant, he would let us know just how proud he was and how much we were loved.
Gonna miss you Dad!
Paul’s Stories about Robbo
We were playing at the Walthamstow Town Hall and Robbo went off stage for a while leaving Ric to sing a few songs. We did a couple then started to play the Buddy Holly song ‘Peggy Sue’ which starts with an almost identical drum intro as ‘Denis Denee’ by Blondie. Well, sometimes Robbo used to put on a dress and a blond wig to sing the Blondie song. This was something that Ric and Cookie were not aware of and were completely stunned when, from stage right, Robbo walks on in a dress and blonde wig and attempted to take over the mike. Ric bravely carried on singing ‘Peggy Sue’ whilst Robbo wandered around the stage very confused until finally doing his usual exit, which was to lay on the floor and roll off the edge of the stage. It was something you had to see to get the hilarious side of it.
Another incident featuring Ric was when we were playing The British Rail club in Kings Cross. It is an interesting venue on a Saturday night! Then Robbo tripped over the leads at the front of the stage causing a big microphone on a boom stand to hit Ric, directly between the eyes, knocking him out. When he came round his response was a very dry, just saying “Thanks Deka“.
Robbo was visiting me down in Bournemouth with Gary & Keith and he stopped in the high road to make a phone call from a public phone box. Well, whilst he was in there, Gary and Keith found some string or wire and wrapped it all round the box locking him in. He spent the next hour or so pleading with passerby’s to let him out.
We played at a rough club down in Wood Green and the evening basically ended in a riot. The police came out in force after getting a call from Robbo, and they escorted us away from the place. We were the target of all the crowds anger. The funny thing was at our next gig Robbo said “…there is some good news, they want us back next week”.
We played at another big club and all the raffle prizes were left in our dressing room. Bob Bailey fancied some chocolate, so he started taking all the sweets out of the prizes and then sealing the boxes up again. All the way back in the van, Bob was saying “…fancy a chocolate Robbo?” and giving him loads to give to the kids. Robb didn’t suss it out. The next day the agent phoned up furious about the prizes and Robbo said “How dare you! My boys would never do that.” He then immediately called Bob and gave him what for.
Robert John Eccles – Order of Service
(Click above to view then download PDF)
The Wake
