Leigh Robinson 1948-2022
The Western Group lost a stalwart when Leigh died suddenly at the beginning of April. Leigh was a ‘proper’ journalist as many will know, working his way up through the local press in Northern England before coming south in the 1990s and after sojourns in Hampshire and the West Country eventually settled in Wiltshire. He inherited the motoring correspondent’s role at a Swindon newspaper and joined the Western Group, becoming its chairman in 2005.
Although in recent years describing himself as ‘semi-retired’, Leigh was a regular at car launches and rarely missed a gathering of the Western Group. Befitting his elder status, he tended to let others have their say at meetings before offering his own contributions which were thoughtful and measured. His occasional quizzical looks and ironic rejoinders were often very funny and a reminder that though the purpose was serious, some of his fellows could sometimes take themselves a shade too seriously.
Leigh will be greatly missed.
As a youngster he used to send race reports on Mallory Park meetings to the Derby Evening Telegraph which unaccountably always failed to print them. For thirty years he produced reports and analysis for other people before turning to motoring journalism and writing about matters rather closer to heart. An old 911, acquired when they were still affordable opened the world of Porsche and today he writes on historical subjects for several Porsche magazines in Europe and the US. He is also the UK correspondent for the classic car weekly, La Vie de l’Auto and keeps a foot in the modern world with a column in Trucking, a transport magazine, and as motoring correspondent for the Irish Police Journal.
