Growing up Alice and I were always aware of Dad’s scientific work. Whether it was him travelling abroad for scientific research/conferences/teaching or the like (often returning with a bar of airport acquired ritter sport) or us hosting a myriad of learned colleagues and international students at our house in Cheddar. I’m not sure however that we always necessarily really appreciated how widely respected within the academic community Dad was or the importance and significance of his research.
Dad enjoyed recounting to Alice and I that failed his 11 plus. I think we wanted us to understand that learning and education really isn’t just about a short test but more about the journey you take. Failure at any one point doesn’t define you as a person. It was a good lesson.
Dads journey into academia started at Exeter where he read botany with chemistry after having left school at 16. He was awarded a PdH from Exeter 6 years later. He then took up a post at UEA and shortly thereafter moved to the Brookhaven National Laboratory in New York with his first wife Gillian. After two years there, and the birth of Guy he returned to the UK and took up a post at Letcombe Laboratory nr Oxford.
His work exposed and corrected widely held misconceptions about the development of root structures and their importance on the absorption of nutrients and water. He authored numerous papers and reviews on the subject and wrote the authoritative textbook ‘Ion Transport and Cell Structure in Plants’ in the 70s. With colleagues he showed that the several pathways, by which nutrients cross roots, are affected differently during root development. Much of this work was truly ground breaking – indeed in my own degree I can remember being taught ‘dad’ during several lectures. A real proud moment for me as a student. At this time, the Letcombe Laboratory became a mecca for the study of plant roots and I think it was his most productive and happiest period of research.
His research enabled another great passion of his. Travel. He was not afraid of uprooting his family to whisk us off abroad. We travelled to and lived in Brisbane for 12 months. When we returned, Dad found the academic landscape in the UK was shifting. Letcombe was soon to close and we moved to Cheddar in 1985 where Dad resumed his research at the Long Ashton Research station. His work began to adopt a more biochemical focus examining the regulation of ion transport and nitrogen and sulphur assimilation. His group cloned and sequenced the first ion transporters from higher plants, again ground breaking stuff.
We travelled to the south of France in 98, with dad working at the National Agricultural Research Institute at Montpellier with Claude Grignon and Jean-Claude Davidian– another fantastic experience for us as a family.
Throughout his career he maintained strong links with universities and institutions across the world, including in particular with Lisbon, Bayreuth, China, India, Bangladesh, Spain and France. I think he could get by in about 7 different languages! Indeed he even received a Soviet Academy of Sciences award for his extensive travels in the USSR! I only just found that out but receiving an award for travelling, made me smile and I’m sure it did dad too.
He maintained very close links to Australia through his career, particularly in later life with the University of Western Australia in Perth and Hans Lambers. He received an Honorary Doctorate from UWA in 2004 in recognition of his outstanding contributions to our understanding of mineral nutrition in wild and cultivated plants.
Academically he maintained teaching posts at Nottingham, Exeter and Utrecht, receiving a Doctor of Science (honorary degree) from Exeter and the FC Donders Chair in the Faculty of Science in Utrecht. He elected vice president and later president of the Society of Experimental Biology and was also elected a Fellow of the Institute of Biology.
Despite his success and pioneering research I think Dad felt a little disillusioned with science and the evolution of scientific research in the UK and the shift from well funded and supported research institutes to the endless cycle of grant applications and short-termism that seems to be the norm nowadays. It is telling to me that as I left home for university his advice to me was ‘don’t end up in academic research’.
Certainly the academic legacy that Dad felt most proud of was the students and post-doc colleagues whom he taught, helped, mentored and guided throughout his career. Over the past few weeks Mum has received messages from colleagues from around the world reflecting on the guidance, knowledge and most of all friendship that Dad offered. He was admired by all who knew and worked with him and I don’t think you can really ask for much more.
