Robin Larkey

Keeping Everyone Laughing
Some days were boring. At the Cantor Fitzgerald offices, the trading would be lackluster because everyone was awaiting a Federal Reserve announcement or some such market-epochal event. So the brokers would be grumpy.

Not Robin Larkey. Unfailingly, he would resuscitate the mood with one of his Monty Pythonesque one- liners. "He kept everyone laughing nonstop," said Patrick Edwards, a good friend. "What a sense of humor he had."

Mr. Larkey, 48, was a Cantor currency broker, who lived with his wife and three sons in Chatham, N.J. Another thing about him was that he always stood up for the underdog.

Mr. Edwards remembers being in a bar some years ago when a loud-mouthed drunk was really giving it to the female bartender. She tried to quiet the drunk, but he got more boisterous. Mr. Larkey stood up and very effectively upbraided the man.

The man left. Good thing. Back in his native England, Mr. Larkey was a skilled boxer. Legend has it that he once knocked out a future Olympic silver medal winner.

Mr. Larkey had to be at work early, but he always abided by a little ritual. At 6 a.m., before he left, he would make tea and toast and take it to his wife, Tracy, in bed. In truth, she might doze off without eating, and then later put the tea in the microwave, but she adored the thought. As he left, using his nickname for her, he would say, "I love you, Plum."

Profile published in THE NEW YORK TIMES on November 9, 2001.


Robin B. Larkey, 48, devoted to family

Robin B. Larkey of Chatham was such a fan of family life he couldn't help but implore his bachelor buddy to tie the knot.

At the christening of his youngest son William two years ago, Mr. Larkey watched his friend's girlfriend hold the baby in her arms. He turned to the friend, Patrick Edwards, and told him: "You've got to lock that up while you've got the chance."

Edwards, a co-worker who described Mr. Larkey as a big-brother figure, is now married to Marilyn. "He had a big role in my getting married," Edwards said of Mr. Larkey.

Mr. Larkey's devotion to his wife Tracy Anne and their three sons was played out in more direct ways, too, from his loyal attendance at their youth soccer games to his daily routine of bringing her toast and marmalade in bed every morning. Heading out the door, he never failed to say, "I love you, plum."

That was the way he left her the morning of Sept. 11, when he went to work at his job as a foreign exchange broker for Cantor Fitzgerald on the 105th floor of One World Trade Center. Mr. Larkey was lost in the terrorist attack on the towers.

Mr. Larkey, 48, moved to the United States from his native Surrey, England, in 1992, but he maintained a passion for the local English football club, Chelsea, and for British rock bands, such as the Rolling Stones and the Who.

A British citizen, he loved living in America. He was thrilled when William's birth here made him a natural-born U.S. citizen.

At Cantor Fitzgerald, he was known as an office comedian who would enlighten co-workers with wisecracks and a typically dry English sense of humor. At other times, he would baffle them by calling out orders in Cockney rhyming slang.

"It was jokes all day," Edwards said. "He was the king of one-liners."

Along with his wife, Mr. Larkey is survived by his sons Nicholas, 13, Oliver 12, and William, 2; his mother, Olive Larkey; sisters, Suzanne Roberts and Joanna Briggs. His father Blair Kenneth Larkey is deceased.

v A memorial service will be held at 5:15 p.m. tomorrow at St. Paul's Episcopal Church, 200 Main St., Chatham.

In lieu of flowers, donations may be sent to the Larkey Family Trust Fund, P.O. Box 299, Chatham, N.J. 07928.