Robert Harrison Stringer
30 June 1938 - 29 February 2020
Schleswig-Holstein, Germany, 22-Apr-2018
STRINGER Robert Harrison ‘Bob’.
Passed away peacefully after long and multiple illnesses at St Mary’s Hospital, on 29-Feb-2020.
His family were with him at the end.
The staff at the Wellow end-of-life ward were amazing.
Dad is survived by his wife Helge, his sister Joan, five sons and many grandchildren and great-grandchildren.
Date for the funeral still to be determined.
And new philosophy calls all in doubt,
The element of fire is quite put out,
The sun is lost, and th’ earth, and no man’s wit
Can well direct him where to look for it.
And freely men confess that this world’s spent,
When in the planets and the firmament
They seek so many new; they see that this
Is crumbled out again to his atomies.
‘Tis all in pieces, all coherence gone,
All just supply, and all relation;
— From An Anatomy of the World by John Donne
Robert Harrison Stringer was born 30th June 1938 in Clapham, London, to Joseph Harrison (Harry) & Jennie Stringer (nee Atkinson). The family moved shortly after to the Middlesbrough area (Great Ayton, Stokesley, Middlesbrough) where they lived from 1940- 1949. There, Bob gained a younger brother David (1940) and his favourite sister, Joan (1943).
From 1949-1953 they lived in Ashford, Middlesex where Bob attended Ashford Grammar school.
The family moved to Ventnor Isle of Wight and Bob attended Sandown Grammar school from 1953-1955.
After leaving school, he delayed his national service by two years and worked in Derby for an Accountancy firm to start his accountancy training.
Dad, his sister Joan. Dyffryn, Pembrokeshire, 16 July 2019
In 1957 Bob took a seven year option to do his national service in the Royal Air Force (RAF), training at Bicester and then in Cyprus.
In the summer of 1963 he met Helge Hollmann, a draftswoman from Dillenberg, Germany in Bonchurch, on the Isle of Wight, and they married within four months in November 1963 in London.
They lived in Lewisham and Sydenham in London where Bob worked and continued his training as an accountant for Lyons (of corner shop fame).
They then moved to Rainham in Kent, and then Reading, Berkshire.
During this time five sons were born to them - Steffan, Martin, Daniel, Neil and Robert
Alverstone, Isle of Wight, 30 June 2013
In May 1979 the family of seven, moved to Sandown, on the Isle of Wight. Bob kept working at Lyons ( which was not part of Trust Houses Forte), commuting every day to London from the Island.
He then got a job with Trucast in Ryde and later he worked for the Prison Service setting up accounting systems until his retirement.
Bob and Helge moved to Alverstone in 1995 and realised their ambition of buying a holiday home in France.
Helge’s dementia became quite severe and she needed continuous care.
Bob moved into a flat in Ventnor in 2015.
At the end, Bob was in the process of selling the flat in Ventnor and the holiday home in France and had moved into Helge’s care home. The accumulated injury of strokes and his MDS (leukaemia) left him very weak and he died after nearly three weeks in hospital.
Dan, Steffan and Dad. Blekendorf, Schleswig-Holstein, Germany, 21 April 2018
Dad was a polymath and a renaissance man.
Dad liked watching telly - particularly Strictly Come Dancing , Dr Who and the Football.
He liked making beer, and he liked drinking beer.
He played football and enjoyed cricket, training as an umpire.
Dad was a lifelong vegetarian (only eating chicken and German sausages occasionally!)
Dad spent years of his life learning languages - up to five at the same time (Italian, French, Latin, German & Japanese).
He was interested in science and science fiction, discrete mathematics, sudoku, technology, logic, multiple computer programming languages, psychology, neurology, artificial intelligence, philosophy and ontology, arts and crafts, Zen Buddhism and music.
Dad loved all things Japanese, including poetry, haiku, calligraphy, and origami.
With respect to poetry he was fond of Basho, Corso, Ferlinghetti, Ginsberg, Kerouac, Brian Patten, Roger McGough (the beat poets), Donne and Blake.
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