For 56 years, Cedric Robinson has guided walkers across the treacherous tidal sands and mudflats of Morecambe Bay. Barefoot, tanned as a walnut and always wearing jeans and a shirt – he has no time for Gore-Tex, less still, GPS – he has safely shepherded everyone from Prince Philip to Victoria Wood away from the quicksands in his role as the Queen’s Guide.

Now 86, he had already planned this season’s walks in his red A4 diary, 19 in all. He had studied the tides to make sure the waters would not engulf his guests, often 600 at a time and usually raising money for charity, as they crossed from Arnside to Kents Bank, near Grange-over-Sands.

Then he received a visit from Lord Cavendish, trustee of the Guide Over Sands Trust, who said it was time to stop. It was never going to be an easy conversation. “I thought I could go on for ever. My dad lived until he was 103,” Robinson told the Guardian this week, clearly not quite at peace with the idea of hanging up the whistle he uses to stop walkers going off course. “I always thought the day I retire would be the worst day of my life.”

Bay watch: Cedric Robinson on Morecambe Bay. Photograph: Christopher Thomond/The Guardian

The Cavendish family owns 17,000 acres of countryside in England’s south Lakeland, including large swathes of the estuary coast – the salt marshes and rivers which Robinson has spent a lifetime crossing, first as a cockle fisherman and then as the official guide to the sands.

For decades the Cavendish clan has helped the Queen choose the guide to Morecambe Bay, in her role as the duke of nearby Lancaster. The job is a historical quirk dating back to the dissolution of the monasteries, when the reigning monarch inherited an obligation to appoint guides for travellers over the sands of the bay.

In 2012 the Duchy of Lancaster passed the duty to the Guide Over Sands Trust and it fell to the current Lord Cavendish, Hugh, to deliver the bad news to Robinson. To do so he visited Guides Farm, a ramshackle cottage right on the coast in Kents Bank, where Robinson and his wife Olive have lived rent-free since 1963 (initially without electricity or running water), the main perk of a job that still carries an annual salary of just £15.

Cavendish reassured Robinson that he would still be welcome and wanted on the walks, but would appear in more of an ambassadorial role. “First he praised me to what I have done, for building the walks up from nothing and raising so much for charity. Then in the next breath he said: ‘At the age you’ve got to, Mr Robinson – Cedric,’ he said, ‘we’d like to take the responsibility away from you and we would like you to choose a new guide.’”

It was a relief they still wanted him around: “I couldn’t just sit here and watch the tides all day, could I?” said Robinson, gesturing out of the window of the living room at Guides Farm, which is plastered with certificates celebrating his many accolades and achievements.

On the wall is the beer pump clip for Cedric’s Ale, one of two beers made in his honour. Recently he was immortalised in Grange when a new housing development was christened Cedric Walk – the developers even took a cast of his feet in bronze to explain the connection to future generations, and named a connecting footpath Olive Way.

Olive, who illustrated many of her husband’s early books, turned 94 earlier this month and her birthday has prompted a certain amount of introspection: “The Queen is 92, two years younger than my wife, and she has been cutting down on her engagements, so I thought if the Queen’s going to cut down, so can I,” said Robinson.

He has certainly earned a rest. Several hundred thousand people have crossed with him during his 56-year reign. Most did it on foot – though Prince Philip used a horse-drawn carriage. If someone proposed an idea that tickled Robinson, he usually gave it a go. Once he crossed with 27 geese as a fundraising stunt for an arthritis sufferer. On another occasion he hid in the bay from Anneka Rice for an episode of Treasure Hunt (“I was wondering if the helicopter and crew were ever going to find us, but eventually they did,” he recalled in one of the many volumes of his memoirs). Once he took Rick Stein out fishing for flounders. The TV chef said the flounders were “equally as good as fresh halibut”, Robinson remembers proudly.

2018 had been a tricky year for Robinson. He struggled to recover from two hernia operations and had to cancel some walks. When the Guardian signed up for a charity crossing advertised as being guided by him last year, he appeared a few miles in on a tractor, and was immediately besieged by walkers wanting selfies. He clearly enjoys the recognition and has developed a habit of referring to himself in the third person, saying things like “People feel safe on walks led by Cedric” when he disparages anyone who has attempted to muscle in on his territory over the last half-century.

Michael Wilson, 40 years his junior, is taking over from Cedric Robinson. Photograph: Christopher Thomond/The Guardian

After careful consideration, Robinson recently chose his successor: 46-year-old fisherman Michael Wilson from nearby Flookburgh. Wilson is a gregarious character who has fished Morecambe Bay since he was old enough to hold a net. When the Guardian visited he was painting a tractor in a T-shirt saying “I live with Little Miss Bossy”. Like Robinson, he insists the 120 sq miles of sands hold no fear for him – even after he found a skull belonging to one of the 23 Chinese cockle pickers who died in the bay in 2004.

The hazard of the bay is part of its appeal, he thinks: “People like the danger of it, the sinking sands. People are thrill-seekers nowadays, aren’t they?” He says he will stick with Robinson’s method of marking the route with laurel bushes the day before each walk, “even though” – don’t tell Cedric – “you don’t really need them if you’ve got GPS”.