The cogs of nature

Philip Reynolds talks to Rob Collins about his life, his motivations and being a ‘countryside engineer’

- Philip Reynolds

“Well I grew up wild and free Walking these fields in my bare feet There wasn’t no place I couldn’t go With a 22 rifle and a fishing pole Well I live in the city but don’t fit in You know it’s a pity the shape I’m in But I got no home and I got no choice Oh Lord have mercy on a country boy”

So sang Don Williams on Lord Have Mercy on a Country Boy. It has resonance for Rob Collins, who though now a fully-fledged country boy could be said to have a foot in both camps.

Rob, 49, grew up in modest circumstances in and around Bristol. As he puts it: “My mum’s side of the family were south Bristol ‘characters’. I got embroiled in that for a short time but thought better of it.”

There will be many people who will be grateful that he did, least not many young people, but more of that later. Certainly, Rob would admit that his background is what could euphemistically be described as ‘colourful’.

While one half of his family were Bristol dockers, plying their trade at Avonmouth and Royal Portbury, the other half were country people. His grandfather, a D-Day veteran whom he refers to as Pappy, was the biggest influence on the future direction of his life. It was he who encouraged the young Rob in the direction of country sports, and his father, Rob Collins Snr, taught him how to ferret and shoot.

Struggle

His childhood in the 1980s was lived against a backdrop of industrial strikes and strife in the years of the Thatcher government. Rob said: “Things weren’t aplenty when I was young. We genuinely had to worry about food on the table. I was sent out to ferret and came back with rabbits and pigeons.”