Robert Abercrombie: November 13 1943 to January 5 2015.
Robert “Bob” Abercrombie was a hospital chef who spent 37 years working in the kitchens of NHS Grampian and laid the first foundation stone of the current Royal Aberdeen’s Children’s hospital.
Mr Abercrombie, who has died following a short battle with cancer aged 71, dedicated his life to ensuring young patients at both the old and the new Royal Children’s Hospitals were well fed and happy – and even made the time to bake them custom cakes on their birthdays.
Born in Torry on November 13 1943, he was the first of four children for Jenny and Jack Abercrombie and moved with the family to Mastrick when he was about eight.
Always a keen lover of music, Mr Abercrombie met his wife Margaret at a dance at the former Palace Ballroom on Bridge Place in 1962.
Shortly afterwards, he began his career as a chef at the old Children’s Hospital at Foresterhill in 1965, where he filled the bellies of generations of sick children until his retirement in 2004.
Mr and Mrs Abercrombie had two children, Kevin and Mark, the latter of which also delighted Mr Abercrombie with two grandsons, Drew and Ethan.
Mark Abercrombie said his dad loved his work and took a great pride in it.
“He started off just working in the kitchens, but over the course of his career he was promoted to head chef and eventually to catering manager,” he said.
“He would always make time to spend with his family, but some weeks we didn’t see much of him as he would be working six days a week from the early hours, that was his life.
“He was much more than just a hospital cook to all the staff, kids and families at the hospital,” he added.
“He would make sure to bake them all special cakes or meals on their birthdays, and there would be cakes shaped like a record player when 80’s Radio 1 DJs came visiting, as well as Christmas Dinners, Burns Suppers, the lot.
“As the longest standing member of NHS Grampian at the time, he was chosen to lay the foundation stone for the new children’s hospital. It was a really emotional, special day for him, and one he was always very proud of.”
Although he spent his days cooking vast piles of food for the sick kids, at home Mr Abercrombie seldom entered the kitchen after a hard day’s work – but when he did, he did so with gusto.
Mark, continued: “He didn’t cook at home, mum did pretty much all of the work in the kitchen. He rarely spent any time cooking for the family until after he retired, but he must have missed cooking for the 300 or so children at a time because his portions were always way, way too big for just him and mum.
“He used his retirement to spend a lot of time with his grandsons, and spent a lot of time playing hide and seek with them, showing them the garden, and playing them songs from his massive record collection on his jukebox, he even left the jukebox for them because they loved it so much.”
Mr Abercrombie died on Monday January 5. His funeral will be held on Wednesday at 1.35pm at Aberdeen Crematorium.