Bob Payne Collection - GA 'Carreck Archive'

Bob Payne Collection - GA 'Carreck Archive'

Obituary (from magazine of the Geologists' Association Volume 13 No. 4 December 2014.)

Robert (Bob) Payne May 1929 – August 2014

Bob was born in North London and started work in 1943 in the building & construction industry, progressing to senior site management on contracts all over the London area and Scotland. He had spells working abroad, in Khartoum, Gibraltar, Kuwait, Muscat and Bahrain. On retiring in 1992, having had some interest in Geology, he took up evening classes at Ware College run by Dr. Steve Purkiss. Steve ran weekend trips to local sites of geological interest, plus weekends away to Scotland, the Lake District, South Wales, the Mendips, Bracklesham Bay, Northumberland, Derbyshire, Anglesey; wherever they went, Bob went too. During this time Bob also joined many trips abroad with the G.A., with Bristol University (6 trips to various parts of N.W. Scotland with Dr Peter Hardy) and with Sheffield University. Every one of these was meticulously written up, cross referenced with photographs, of which there were over 3000. All this information from 91 field trips was collated into 27 Lever arch files. The places Bob visited are numerous and various, including Hungary, North America (3 times), Canada (twice), Namibia, South Africa, Iceland (at least twice), Oman, Libya, India, the East African Rift Valley, Portugal, Bavaria, the Italian volcanoes, Newfoundland and British Columbia. The spare bedroom in Bob’s house was his rock museum and library. Shelves on every spare bit of wall filled with over 500 rock samples, all carefully numbered and recorded on a card index system, noting rock type and place of origin. Again all cross referenced into the field trip records. In 2001 Bob joined the Hertfordshire Geological Society and the Cambridge Geology Club; he also attended the Shell Lectures at the Geological Society and, for a time, many of the lectures at the Natural History Museum. It was at the Hertfordshire Geological Society that one of us (HB) crossed Bob’s path for the first time. Having spent numerous evenings collating the next year’s lecture programme, I was saddened that on its publication it was greeted by the comment “what a load of old ****” from a member of the audience. I knew that next year I should consult Bob first. He was a man who knew what he liked and wasn’t afraid to say so. Bob was at heart a “hard rock and structural man” who said that he was never interested in fossils, but when we checked his book shelves there were more books on fossils than any other subject. Bob was a dedicated, enthusiastic geologist with a fantastic ability to record all his trips on paper, as well as photographically. This will be his legacy, as all those cross referenced field trip notes, field guides, photographs and specimens, which fill over thirty boxes, will form part of the Geologists’ Association Carrack Archive and will be stored and available from the BGS store in Keyworth. He was an accomplished joiner, producing some really top quality pieces, as well as the shelves which housed his collection. He is survived by his wife Barbara and his two children, Tony (a glaciologist) and Susan (a librarian). He will be sadly missed by all of us. Charlie Norcott & Haydon Bailey

List of field trips in the collection

1. Mendips

2. Broadoak, Kent

3. Streatham, Ely

4. Walton-on the Naze

5. Barmouth

6. Anglesey[?]

7. Scotland

8. Scotland

9. Scotland

10. Scotland

11. Scotch Corner, Whitby

12. Leighton Buzzard

13. Folkstone

14. Hunstanton

15. Devon

16. Streatham, Ely

17. Dudley

18. Miscellaneous

19. Isle of Sheppey

20. Nuneaton, Walsall, Bridgenorth

21. Crosshands Quarry

22. Seaham, Teesdale, Wensleydale

23. ??

24. Mull, Ben Cruachan, Oban

25. Writhlington

26. West Runton, Norfolk

27. Mid wales Builth Wells

28. Selsey Bill

29. ??

30. Brittany[?]

31. Pembroke

32. Forest of Dean

33. North Somerset

34. Canada

35. Isle of Wight

36. Calais

37. Northumberland

38. ??

39. None listed

40. Lake District

41. ?? Dartmoor

42. Shropshire

43. Himalayas

44. Brittany-Normandy

45. Weymouth

46. Bude

47. Bracklesham Bay

48. Canada/USA

49. East Yorkshire, Lincolnshire

50. Lyme Regis

51. North Wales

52. Folkstone 2nd Visit

53. Namibia, South Africa

54. Barrington Cement Works

55. ??

56. Lizard

57. Cornwall

58. East Yorkshire, Whitby etc.

59. South Shropshire

60. Tewksbury

61. ?

62. SW Scotland

63. South Shropshire

64. Mull [?]

65. USA, OK. Tex N?

66. N.W. Scotland

67. Iceland

68. Arran

69. Portugal

70. India

71. Dalradian

72. Hebrides

73. Tunisia

74. The Oman[?]

75. Shetland

76. Hungary

77. N. Ireland

78. Iceland

79. Jersey

80. South Italy

81. Scilly Islands

82. Connemara