Robin Musson – ‘Proof that you don't have to be a bastard to get on’
Rear-Admiral Robin Musson,who has died aged 81, won relief for seagoers from the payment of the poll tax, and later became head of his profession.
As captain of HMS Cochrane, 1988–90, the naval shore establishment at Rosyth, Musson was also flag captain to the Flag Officer Scotland and Northern Ireland, Vice-Admiral Sir Jock Slater. At their first meeting, Slater told Musson to focus on the unwelcome proposal that seagoers based in Scotland were expected to pay a proposed poll tax even when at sea.
Musson decided to invite Fife’s community charge registration officer to lunch. He had been warned that the man was a communist, but for that reason Musson thought he was just the man to sympathise with the sailors’ lot. When Musson explained the issue, the man exclaimed: “It’s my responsibility to decide who pays, not those b------s in London!”