This picture of me with my parents, taken at a family wedding (my sister Sarah was a bridesmaid, so not with us at this point), unfortunately does not show the bright red of the cap I wore as a Chafyn Grove schoolboy. In my first term at Oundle I don’t think I was as happy as I looked for the camera. One of the best things about that school was Ioan Thomas, caught here encouraging an appetite for wonder at the living world.
Life at Over Norton: the battered Land Rover with which we crashed through rough country; Wessex Saddlebacks landscaping the equally rough country that was then the garden of our cottage, c. 1951; my inventive father standing proudly by his patent pasteurizer; haymaking with the little grey Fergie.
In the summer holidays I earned my keep bale-sledging. Bottom: Following in father’s footsteps: moving some family heirloom or other.
Clockwise from bottom left: Peter Medawar before the stroke that changed his life; Niko in his element, at Ravenglass painting dummy eggs; ‘The deeply intelligent eyes, understanding what you meant even before the words came out . . . sceptical, quizzical tilt of the eyebrows, under the untidy hair.’ Mike Cullen, sadly missed mentor to so many; What to peck? Chicks that had never seen overhead light; George Barlow, my Berkeley friend and guide, came to Oxford later on sabbatical, and we went punting together on the Cherwell. (That’s not John Lennon, it’s Tim Halliday the newt expert.)
Above: Hunting the Surrey puma; intrepid explorer scours the landscape for wild beasts. Bottom: Wild beasts or frightened boys? California National Guard raggedly confront the Peace People in Berkeley.
Top: Cricket commentary: Ted Burk and I recording behaviour with microphone and Dawkins Organ. Middle: The Animal Behaviour Research Group after the move from Bevington Road. Marian is far left. I am slightly right of centre. Bottom: A PDP-8 computer like the one that fed my addiction in 13 Bevington Road.
Top: Danny Lehrman (standing) and Niko Tinbergen (right) settling their differences. Bottom: Niko in his element again: will the ash fall from his cigarette before he finishes the shot?
Professor Pringle and (left to right) his colleagues, E. B. Ford, Niko Tinbergen, William Holmes, Peter Brunet, David Nichols.
Deep thought. Above: Bill Hamilton and Robert Trivers wrestling with a problem during Bill’s visit to Harvard; middle left: the endlessly invigorating John Maynard Smith in his beloved garden. Middle right: The Selfish Gene with the original Desmond Morris cover. Bottom left: with the tall, thoughtful, Lincolnesque George Williams. Bottom right: ‘I must have that book!’ Michael Rodgers, K-selected science publisher.