His parents were the economist Lionel Robbins (1898-1984) and his wife Iris (née Gardiner) (1896-1997).
[1] His father became a life peer in 1958, rendering Robbins The Hon, which was a title he loathed and never used.
[2] He had an older sister, Anne, who would go on to marry the economist and journalist Christopher Johnson.
[2] Just after the end of the War in 1945, at 18 Robbins joined the Royal Artillery's 21st Field Training Regiment, then stationed in Venice.
[3] On being demobbed, Robbins went up to New College, Oxford where he read English under John Bayley, but without enthusiasm, and was awarded a Fourth, of which he was very proud.
[3] Robbins was a prolific painter and sculptor, both very interested in human form and in nature, particularly the Hampstead Ponds and Lyme Regis.