It is with much sadness that we report the passing of our vice-president and former chairman John Robinson on 17th February at the age of 89. A public service to celebrate his life will be held at 11am on Tuesday, February 25th at Minafon Chapel of Rest, Glanhwfa Road, Llangefni, LL77 7FE.
John was a prominent member of C&A Motor Club for many, many years and was competing as a navigator on major rallies in the 1960s and early 1970s before becoming more involved in the organising of events. He was club treasurer and then chairman for several years and also represented the club for decades at both Welsh Association of Motor Clubs and Association of North Western Car Clubs meetings.
He was Clerk of the Course of the club’s Gwynedd Rally, which was initially a road rally that developed into a format of using evening stages on private land before a full night rally of long selectives. John was then instrumental in persuading the club committee that the way forward was to apply for an allocation of forest stages and so, in 1975, the Gwynedd Rally became the first Restricted status forest rally to be run in North Wales by a local club. Together with Jim Jones, John remained in charge of the event as it rose from being a Restricted status event in the BTRDA Championship, through National status in the Castrol Autosport Championship to International status and a round of the British Rally Championship and the FIA European Rally Championship as the Vauxhall Rally of Wales.
John was a valued member of the club committee until 2014 when declining health contributed to his decision to retire from this role. He was kind and softly spoken; always the voice of reason, he had a knack of guiding others in the right direction over problematic issues. He will be sadly missed, and we send our sincere condolences to his wife Ann and the family.
