There's more to Tom Robinson than meets the eye. He writes catchy pop tunes, lends his support to those in need and, for someone who once openly sang about being glad to be gay, talks openly about his love for his wife and children. George Frew picks up the story . . .

Even those of us who were always too clumsy to dance and too cool to try couldn't resist the heartlifting swagger of Tom Robinson's 2-4-6-8 Motorway. It did what all great pop songs are meant to do. It messed with your emotions and in this case, made you happy for a while.

And, quarter of a century later, it still does. Tom Robinson did indeed write the song in the back of a transit van, on the way home from another gig as that same old motorway sign came up in the morning light.

Robinson, in his 50 years, has been a teenager on Teeside (shades of Billy Elliot) and a chorister in Cambridge.

Tom RobinsonHe's been a leading campaigner for Gay Rights and Rock Against Racism. The man who also wrote Power in The Darkness and Sing If You're Glad To Be Gay has always been glad to offer comfort to the wounded.

His propensity for lending a helping hand and his admiration for one of his longtime heroes bring Robinson back to Oxford on the 20th of this month, when he'll be at the Apollo with a host of others to pay tribute to folk legend Martin Carthy.

"You know what they say about never meeting your heroes," Robinson reminds me. "Well, I met Martin relatively late in my career and he was always nearer to a hero to me than anything else - but he's nicer than any image."

Carthy is 60 now, hence the birthday tribute. "Martin's into tradition but he's taken the authentic folk heritage and made it fresh. What he does is not a museum piece - he's a guitar genius, but well-rooted in everyday life," he laughs.

Robinson's second Oxford gig is scheduled for a rather different venue - a convent, to be precise.

He's set to play a benefit gig at All Saints in St Mary's Road on June 30th, on behalf of his" oldest and dearest" friend who is terminally ill. Tickets can be obtained by e-mailing Tom on oxford@bothways.com or by ringing 01865 241723.

Now the problem with writing a pop nugget like 2-4-6-8 Motorway is that, after the initial goldrush, the song can start to lose its lustre. "No, I don't feel like that about Motorway," reveals Robinson. "It's been my calling card - it's allowed me to make 25 albums in as many years."

And yet this was the song which led to Robinson's "very public falling-out" with Ray Davies, who had signed Robinson's first band, Cafe Society, to his own small label.

"Cafe Society was a three-piece acoustic, close-harmony thing. Then I went to see the Sex Pistols and everything changed. But I knew that whatever was going to happen next, it wasn't going to involve close-harmony acoustic trios.

"But to get out of the contract with Ray, I had to surrender the publishing rights to Motorway."

Turn on the radio any day of the week and the chances are you'll hear that terrific chopping riff, that sliding scale of excellence. Buy any rock compilation CD and the chances are 2-4-6-8 will be on it.

Bitter? "No, I'm not," Robinson insists althougth the loss of the publishing rights must have cost him a fortune. "Bitterness destroys you, not them," he says. "Ray had a similar thing done to him when he was young, so I suppose he decided to do it to other people when it was his turn."

Tom Robinson was and is a great fan of Manfred Mann. The boy who got into music because "my dad hated pop - so I figured the best way to annoy him was to learn the electric guitar" made his debut in a band that played Manfred Mann covers - note for note.

And, at one point, Robinson even joined the Manfred's for one night on bass - and his dedication paid off when vocalist Paul Jones forgot the words: "I stepped up to the mic and sang them - in Paul's voice," he chuckles.

When Tom Robinson was a teenager, the law of the land still echoed AE Housman's poem: "Oh, they're taking him to prison for the colour of his hair," or to put it more bluntly, people could still be tried, convicted and jailed for their sexuality.

Thus Robinson, one of nature's 'outsiders', put his own sexuality on the line with songs like Sing If You're Glad To Be Gay. "There were no role models then, no openly gay Cabinet Ministers," he reminds you. "No-one that a gay teenager could look to and think that maybe they, too, might be able to have a happy life after all.

"So I looked at everyone else who has getting a raw deal, including black kids with the sus. laws and I got involved with Rock Against Racism and issues involving sex equality.

"And when I was 36, I fell in love. I fell in love with a woman, but it could have been a man." Tom Robinson guards the privacy of his wife and two children fiercely, yet says he was forced to release a picture of his son shortly after his birth because certain sections of the Press were threatening to write some fairly nasty stuff about his bisexuality otherwise.

This sort of stuff is enough to make you spit, but Robinson just smiles grimly. "Having a wife and children won't stop the queer basher from kicking your teeth down your throat - in fact, it'll probably make him worse," he shrugs.

Robinson knows the score. And he knows the difference between right and wrong. Which is why he plays benefit gigs for people he's never met, but whose predicament he understands and for friends who don't have much time left.

Tom Robinson writes great little pop songs. And Tom Robinson does what he can.

Power in the Darkness.

**Tom Robinson appears at the Oxford Apollo on May 20. For more details and ticket booking, ring 0870 6063500.