My friend Bob Towler, who has died aged 77, started out as a sociological researcher into religious affairs. Later on, he became a commissioning editor at Channel 4 with responsibility for religious programmes.
He was born in Norfolk, the only child of Myrtle (nee French) and her husband, Edward Towler. Edward, a barber in King’s Lynn, used to cut the hair of King George VI when he came to Sandringham. After leaving King Edward VII grammar school in the town, Bob joined the Community of the Resurrection, an Anglican religious community for men based in Mirfield, West Yorkshire.
While living there he studied for a degree in sociology at Leeds University and left Mirfield in the early 1970s to become a sociology lecturer at the university. In 1974, Hugh Bishop, who was head of the community at Mirfield, resigned his position and set up house in Yorkshire with Bob as his partner.
Rising to become a senior lecturer at Leeds, Bob began to lead various significant research projects, including a survey on religious belief that resulted in his 1984 book The Need for Certainty: A Sociological Study of Conventional Religion. In 1982 he was research director of a study into media portrayals of religion, funded by the Christendom Trust, which caught the attention of the Independent Broadcasting Authority (IBA).
Subsequently, in 1983, Bob became head of research at the IBA and in 1987 he was appointed Channel 4’s commissioning editor for religious and adult education programmes. In 1992 he left to become director of the educational charity Inform, before moving after a year to the Independent Television Commission as their head of research.
After Hugh died in 1989, Bob met Sarah Toynbee, who worked in publishing. Shortly thereafter they came to my house, quarrelled a lot, spilt wine on the carpet and left early, bickering. A perceptive visitor said: “Yes, very much in love, the pair of them, I’d say.”
The following year they were married and later Bob retired early from work to help look after their two children, Fred and Maddie.
Bob exchanged the peace of his previously sober life for the maelstrom that was Sarah’s existence in Brighton. Her capacity for friendship being second to none, Bob was swept up into partying, gossip, noise, kitchen suppers, late nights, arguments and drama. All of this he embraced with his own capacity for mischief.
More seriously, he even converted to Rome, telling a friend: “It’s just what you need to do when you marry one of the Toynbee sisters.”
He is survived by Sarah, Fred and Maddie.
