[Photograph : Marilyn Light]    

I was born in London during a lull in the air raids. I learned to love reading at Elm Park County Primary School and chemistry at Newport (Essex) Grammar School. I obtained a B.Sc. and a PhD in chemistry at the University of Durham and met my wife there. I worked for Monsanto in Zurich, the University of Bristol, The United Kingdom Atomic Energy Authority at Amersham, and then in the Chemistry Department of Queen Mary College in the University of London.
My wife and I lived for over 20 years in Tring on the edge of the Chiltern Hills, where we raised our three children. Finally freed from constraints we retreated to Berwick upon Tweed, England’s most northerly town and the home of my maternal ancestors, where we live as happily as the Universe allows.