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I came to the Department of Biochemistry in Sheffield in early 1956 in what was the heyday of physical biochemistry here. Gregorio, Vince Massey, Quentin Gibson, Keith Dalziel and Theo Hofmann were all in post. Although a very junior scientist, I shared their excitement and belief that the application of physical methods would push forward our understanding of biological processes. Those were wonderful times and it was a sad day for those of us who were left, and for the university, when the exodus of all these scientists occurred during the early 1960s. The university powers had failed to recognise Gregorio’s achievements and importance and our loss was North America’s gain.

 

Royden, my husband, and I came to Sheffield in the autumn of 1955 when Royden was appointed to a lectureship in the Department of Extramural Studies. Royden’s job was to teach adults, mainly coal miners on day release, and his teaching ranged from industrial relations and economics to philosophy and how to write an essay or to present a verbal case. His background was Philosophy, Politics and Economics ( Oxford) and mine was Chemistry ( Oxford) – we had met at university.

 

My doctoral research was in x-ray crystallography with Dorothy Hodgkin and post-doc I worked on collagen at King’s college. Had we stayed in London I was to have moved to the Royal Institution to work with David Phillips and Sir Lawrence Bragg. Coming to Sheffield, Quentin Gibson kindly offered me laboratory space, but I had to find my own financial support. Initially I obtained a grant from the Safety in Mines research Establishment and continued working on collagen (breathing in silica dust led to the deposition of collagen nodules in miners’ lungs) but after about a year I decided to change tack and apply for a Medical Research Council grant to pursue structural studies on the iron storage protein, ferritin, to which I had been introduced by Dorothy Hodgkin as part of my doctoral research.

 

To my great delight I was successful in obtaining MRC support and proceeded gradually to acquire x-ray and other equipment, although initially my x-ray diffraction data had to be collected at The Royal Institution in London. My application for MRC funding coincided with my becoming pregnant. Quentin expressed doubts that my research enthusiasm would continue after the birth of my daughter (July 1958). However, I was determined to carry on and was eternally thankful for Gregorio’s supportive encouragement. Gregorio also took quite an interest in my baby daughter, Fiona!

 

I used to very much enjoy having chats with Gregorio over tea in the old Scala cinema where part of the department was housed. We discussed all sorts of topics, scientific, political, personal. Royden also became a friend and enjoyed his conversation. I think he first met Gregorio when he and Shirley invited us to their house in Crimicar Lane to see the Oxford-Cambridge boat race on television (which we did not have). Cambridge won! The Pierce family were also guests. Gregorio knew Frank Pierce, professor of Spanish, through his South American connection and we also became friends with Frank and Una. In the winter of 1964, when we were spending a semester in the University of Wisconsin, our family (two daughters by then) spent a weekend with the Webers in Urbana and in July that year the Webers came for a couple of days to Hartstene Island, Washington State, where we had been lent two small wooden houses. The three Weber girls and our two slept in the beach house, with Alicia in charge, while the four adults shared the nearby A-frame. Both houses had been built for the Ragsdale family holidays (‘Rags’ was a professor of journalism at the University of Wisconsin). Much later (1983 I think), after Gregorio and Shirley had separated, Royden and I spent a day with Gregorio at the University of Urbana and that was the last time I saw him.

 

Although I never fully understood Gregorio’s work, I could see his fluorescence measurements as an important means of studying conformational changes in proteins associated with catalysis. He was a person of outstanding intelligence and dedication, who was an inspiration to young and old, but never a ‘superior person’. He will long be remembered.

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Sheffield, 2009