I once asked Bob how he’d managed the switch in technique from short fiction to novels, and his response was a typically wry and self-deprecating one along the lines that he hadn’t… he said that he tackled his novels as if they were short stories, rather like a sprinter who sails up to the hundred-metre mark and then realises with dismay that he has to maintain that pace for the distance.

The problem for anyone who knew Bob, of course, was that he was such a convivial person and quintessential fan that you had to step away from the man to appreciate just how good a writer he could be.