Robin Harrison, aka Professor Cuddlebumps and Apprentice Earth Wizard, was a much-loved figure and friend to many in the Caldera and Byron Shire. He was a performer, an activist, a change maker and sustainability advocate extraordinaire.
He had one of the biggest minds and surely the biggest laugh you knew? He also had four daughters, which he saw as his fast track out of the patriarchy and was beloved ‘Farty’ to his granddaughter Illuna.
Born in Blackburn, Lancashire in 1946, exactly nine months after the cessation of hostilities (a quintessential baby boomer), he arrived in Australia a week shy of his 16th birthday with a ‘northerner’ accent and a girl’s name. He quickly ditched the accent, changed his name to Bob and joined the army.
After serving in Vietnam, then corporate ladder climbing for W.D. & H.O. Wills tobacco in the 70s, he chucked it all in to become an actor. In the ’80s and ’90s, he worked with the Melbourne Theatre Company, toured extensively with Theatre in Education, lent his unmistakeable deep voice to many voiceovers, and had roles on Neighbours and the iconic Weis Bar ads.
His early experiences of war and corporate life shaped him to become a staunch advocate for peace and an eco-warrior. He was a lifetime member of the Byron Environment Centre (BEC).
Robin was an environmental and political activist and made the front page of the paper a few times with his stand against prohibition laws – including , rumour has it, when he walked down the street in front of the police sniffer dogs spraying bong water.
You would have seen him on his recumbent electric bike, decked always with rainbow flags (hippy high-vis!). In his later years, was an avid writer of letters to the The Echo Newspaper.
Robin has been broadcasting his grass roots sustainability message by drum and voice for decades. Many will have boogied to Robin performing his unique beat poet messages of community abundance and sustainability at markets and street corners. Many will remember his wisdom and laughter; he was a man of many jokes that made you think.
‘Robin was an experienced actor, and became the backbone of the street theatre we used to do with the Binya Butt campaign back in the late ’90s,’ recalls former BEC leader Pete Dupen.
‘Not only was Robin the star of our performing troupe, he also figured out how to produce about 50 of our dispensers out of old real estate corflutes – one of many magic acts that collectively diverted over a million cigarette butts from Belongil Estuary. He was a very, very practical Earth Wizard, and we were lucky to have him for as many decades as we did.’
Robin had visions of a multi-national corporate organism working towards a sustainable future and a real alternative to suburbia, and worked on that spell for a large part of his late life in his mountain hermitage. It was his sincere belief that in order for our species to succeed, we need to work together, in harmony with each other and our planet.
Join daughter Polly and BEC on Tuesday, 10 November in Byron in a working bee starting at
10am with a clean up of the sodden Cumbebin Board Walk (access near end of Butler St). We’ll the be at Railway Park from noon, come and remember around the Rotunda that Robin helped build and install. Music, food and Robin-lovers will be there from noon.
For four decades The Echo has printed the stories some people loved, some people hated, and some pretended not to read. If you want us to keep telling the truth, the real truth, not the sugar-coated version. We’ll need your support to keep the presses rolling. 
