We normally have a Friday lunch seminar. It is either internal or external people telling about their research. I go if I'm not otherwise engaged, by e.g. teaching. It's quite nice to listen to talks about things that are a bit outside your own area of expertise.
This week was a special one; it was actually a public lecture by Tom, one of our professors in physical oceanography. And he was going to talk about the history of that subject within our university, which by now spans 60 years.
He started out with Jack Darbyshire, a local and very clever lad, who was involved in predicting waves within the context of the D-day landings. He seems to have been the first appointee in this subject in the brand new School of Ocean Sciences.
He also spoke of the first research vessel that we had, and what research people did with it. And he mentioned another early researcher, John Simpson, that we seem to have headhunted from Liverpool right after his PhD, and who would stay on to become first professor and then head of school. He has long since retired, but is still active! And I noticed he was actually attending this talk online.
A whole parade of faces came past, including my old line manager James. And a lot of people who are still here. It was a genuinely entertaining and informative talk. I will even forgive Tom for calling benthic foraminifera (that were mentioned within the context of James) phytoplankton. They are neither phyto nor plankton!
He ended this with mentioning another local and very clever lad, my office neighbour Iestyn, who we recruited a few years ago now. We had come full circle!
I hope that in another 60 years’ time, the situation will be such that someone will again be doing a seminar like that. We have survived so far; made that long continue!
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| Tom standing by his opening slide. By coincidence, the backlit head in the foreground belongs to Iestyn |
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