ABSTRACT
Robert Cook, later nicknamed Robin, was born in Lanarkshire in Scotland in 1946. His father was a schoolteacher and the son of a miner who had been blacklisted for his part in the General Strike. He was bright, bookish and ambitious, interested in current affairs and politics and involved in the debating societies at school and university in Edinburgh. Friends remember him as a great debater, charismatic but ruthless in his pursuit of his objectives. At university he read English literature, and joined the Labour club, becoming its chairman. He was co-chair of the Scottish Association of Labour Student Organisations along with George Robertson. He was also a member of the debates committee of the Union, where he met Margaret Whitmore whom he subsequently married.2
