Robert Sheppard: Meeting Bob Cobbing

In 'Work' there appears the sentence: 'Groundhogs ticket in his pocket: Cobbing plays him "e".' This is a 'writing-through' of an entry that reads (and is enscripted) thus:

Diary Saturday November 3^rd, 1973

i got the tickets for the groundhogs before going to london

            in the afternoon I arrived at bob cobbing’s where he already had a girl student doing a thesis on language in art. his room was covered in papers and untidy. cobbing answered questions helpfully and played tapes including late stuff for radio 3 and a tape with peter finch of the ‘e’ part of his 5 vowel piece which is unfinished. showed us mss of it

            after miriam left, cobbing and i discussed other aspects of poetry today – making money, poets conference and during tea talked about eliot/pound/auden and jazz and school – he was a rebel teacher with nuttall. he knows tina fulker (!) and had a visit from lawrence upton that morning

            i finally left loaded with material at 9.00 after 6 hrs!

                                                                                                he’s agreed to help me put on a display of concrete poetry at school.

A photo of Bob Cobbing of about that time.  More on Bob here and our 2001 collaboration (which would have surprised and delighted my 1973 self) here.