Image: Robert Greenberg
I met Rob in my very first class at RMIT. I was a mature-age student studying screenwriting and he was the experienced children’s TV writer and lecturer who walked in through the door and turned everything upside down. Unfairly handsome, blessed with more energy than a duffel bag of toddlers, his classes were anarchic and inclusive, encouraging, exhilarating and stupidly productive. He quickly found out that I was a musician and offered me a pass if I’d fill in on bass in his brother’s band. I came to realise this was typical of Rob, but not for the reasons you might imagine. He loved pretending to be mercenary – it offered him the chance to shock people and suited his anarchic sense of humour. It also enabled him to hide – for some reason I still haven’t worked out – just how generous and nurturing he was. The man was a champion of other people’s talent, all the while trying very hard to pretend that he wasn’t.
