Robert Malster

We were sad to learn this week of the passing of Robert Malster, aged 90.

I first became aware of Robert Malster as an author back in 2007.  I was running the Post Office and village shop in Coltishall at the time and was approached by his publisher to see if I’d be interested in stocking his new book, The Norfolk and Suffolk Broads.  I wasn’t sure – we didn’t really sell books and at the time it seemed quite expensive.  I took a few to start with and quickly sold out. Within a few weeks I’d sold over 100 copies and started my career as a bookseller!

Bob trained as a journalist with the Lowestoft Journal, experiencing at first hand the final years of the autumn herring fishing. His first book, Wreck and Rescue on the Essex Coast was followed by Wherries and Waterways, Saved from the Sea and a number of other books on local and maritime history. Among them are A History of Ipswich , written to mark the 800th anniversary of the granting of a charter to the town by King John, and The Norfolk and Suffolk Broads, which appeared just 100 years after W.A. Dutt’s celebrated work on the same subject.

He founded Malthouse Press and, as general editor, he edited more than fifty books by other authors before embarking on a series on the maritime history of the East Anglian counties for Poppyland Publishing as well as North Sea War 1914-1919.  Maritime Norfolk Part One, Maritime Norfolk Part Two and Maritime Suffolk are exemplary works, two out of the three being shortlisted in the History and Tradition category of the East Anglian Book Awards. In recent years he wrote the Poppyland booklet, Broadland, and had just completed a new work, The Industrial History of the Eastern Counties, yet to be published.

I only met Bob once, quite recently, when Elizabeth and I stopped by his house in Suffolk to pick up some books.  I had been told they were in the garage, but Bob wasn’t able to sort them out himself.  When he opened the garage door I understood why.  It was packed, floor to ceiling, with boxes, mostly full of books!  We were lucky – the ones I needed were only a little way back from the front of the garage.  While we were moving the boxes we chatted amiably about boats and Suffolk in general.  I suspect his family have got quite a job ahead of them clearing out his house, but who knows what gems they are going to find.

RIP Robert Malster, 1932-2023