This book could not have been written without the wizardry of Dido Davies. From helping to transcribe the sound of plastic bags and calculating the typography of a taunt (i.e. Cabbage), to rewriting practically the entire opening chapter, her energetic and inspired suggestions about structure and style, her brilliant, subtle ear for humour and pacing (and her calm encouragement in times when I’ve been about to give the project up in despair) have improved every page immeasurably.
Simon’s brothers, Michael and Francis, his sister-in-law Amanda, and his cousins Valerie Collis and Prudence Burnett have been generous with their time and provided many of the anecdotes about Simon’s family and early life (on which Simon was especially hopeless). I am also grateful to Michael for the use of the photographs of Simon and of his parents in Chapter 9, and to Amanda (in the same chapter) for the photographs of Simon’s mother and of the stallion Battleaxe. Also, Vera Lucia Ottoni GuedesCarlos Pereira-Molendini, for her stories and her ebullience: she was Simon’s mother’s companion, and still comes once a year to my house to cut Simon’s hair.
Simon’s days at Ashdown could not have been described without the enthusiasm and the superb memory of the ex-headmaster Clive Williams, and the kindness and courage of one of Simon’s former (but by no means worst, Simon assures me) bullies, Malcolm Russell.
For information about Simon’s days at Eton I am most indebted to William Waldegrave (now provost of the school) and to one of Simon’s mathematics teachers there, Dr Norman Routledge. Colin and Carlyn Chisholm were also helpful, though their information (including the story about Simon cutting his hair, removing too much, and trying to stick it back on with Sellotape) came too late to include in the manuscript. I hope to change that for the paperback.
Nick Wedd and Dr Geoff Smith (who lives in a house called Dunsummin and is a former leader of the British Mathematics Olympiad team) provided essential information about the International Mathematics Olympiad and the childhoods of mathematical prodigies.
For their anecdotes and observations about Simon as a mathematician at Cambridge, his genius, the Atlas project, backgammon in the Common Room, the delightful and peculiar behaviour of mathematicians in general and the Monster and Moonshine: Professor John Horton Conway, Dr Larissa Queen, Dr Richard Parker, Professor John McKay, Professor Koichiro Harada, Dr Ian Grojnowski (also for his top-up lesson in Group Theory, in the tea room of the LRB Bookshop), Professor Robert Curtis, Professor Bernard Silverman, Dr John Duncan, Professor Richard Borcherds, Professor Rob Wilson, Amanda Stagg and Dr Ruth Williams.
Umar Salam and Dr Graeme Mitcheson: their recommendations about how to deal with the mathematics of Group Theory, and their eagle eye for mathematical and non-mathematical errors and Cambridge misrepresentations, were invaluable. Beth Rashbaum’s intolerance of whimsy and her pages of editorial critique improved the style in several important sections.
Dr Wajid Mannan walked across Hyde Park to my house to teach me, with patience, charm and clarity, the little I now know about how Group Theory leads to the Monster. Also, the Open University, for the excellence of its mathematics courses in Group Theory and the dedication and expertise of its tutors – I am en route to becoming its most sluggish MSc student, but this astonishing organisation remains forever supportive and willing to welcome me back. While on the subject of institutions, thank you also to the NHS, because it is wonderful.
Grandmaster Ray Keene explained Simon’s talent and (more interestingly) his inabilities at chess. Peter Donovan and Nicholas Davidson, Simon’s brilliance at bridge.
Simon has got through a vast number of tenants during his time as a landlord in Cambridge. Andrew and Anabel Turtle, Harriet Snape, Aubrey de Grey (now well known as a ‘gerontologist’ who believes we can live until we’re a thousand years old), the late Andrew Plater and Mark Offord (Simon’s current tenant, in my old rooms) have each been helpful with stories and observations. Marianna Vintiadis reminded me of dozens of anecdotes, and analysed them in cleverer ways than I could have managed.
Siobhan Roberts – without her energy, and her determination to get all the Atlas editors together for her forthcoming biography of John Conway (in which Simon will also appear, for certain), I would not have been able to write Chapter 32.
During the writing of this book, I stayed in the late Joyce Rathbone’s house in Notting Hill. Though we never met, I have spent so long working beside her piano and her books that I pray some of her spirit rubbed off on me. Her goddaughter Pippa Harris was an extraordinarily generous landlady. Thank you also to Diana Berry both for her Eton contacts and for letting me use her flat in Wiltshire in the last summer of writing, when I needed a place to weep, scream and stomp; and to ‘Basic Dog’ (Gracie) for calming my nerves by chasing anything I kicked. And to Belinda and Diana Allan, for use of their glorious house in Italy. Reading this list, I see I am a sponger.
For typing up the tapes and digital recordings of interviews, I and my hands are indebted to Clare Sproston, Ophelia Field (both of whom gave stern advice when I was sounding ridiculous or professionally incompetent) and Denise Knowelden.
Peter Straus, my agent: for his encouragement, shrewd ideas about how to present the book, and his lack of fuss. Without him there would be no contract and therefore no comfort. And Jennifer Hewson, for her constant enthusiasm and helpfulness. Nicholas Pearson, my editor at Fourth Estate, for his calm and patience (and excellent taste); Robert Lacey, for his unmatchable copy editing and proofreading; Julian Humphries, for his cover design and his insistence that outrageous yellow is the only way to go.
Thank you to my splendid and inspiring mother, Joan Brady.
And, with my love, thank you to Flora Dennis. In our endless discussions about Simon and the manuscript, Flora’s fierce fight against inconsistencies, pomposities, obscurities (especially in the mathematical sections), ponderosities, purplifications, narcissisms and irrelevances has saved the story countless times. It has taken me five years to write this book, and – from Kerala to Great Snoring, Norfolk – Flora has made each one of them joyful.