ABSTRACT
BETTER LATE... It was a Friday evening, 5 April 1968, when I disembarked from the plane at Newcastle airport. The NATO Conference on Palaeomagnetism had fin ished that very day: the School of Physics, which was host to the meeting, knew that I was to arrive and one of their researchers came to meet me off the plane. He was a tall ginger-haired South African, with a lively face and a good sense of humour. The organizers were less surprised that I was late than the fact that I was allowed to come at all. Still, they had arranged a special venue for me the following week, a sort of 'conference after the conference' which I was very pleased to hear about. In the meantime there was an intervening weekend, with all the staff tired in the aftermath of an arduous week-long meeting. I was not to see anybody other than my South African minder, who was going to look after my social programme on Saturday and Sunday. He took me straight to the guest suite which was ready for me, at the top of the University building housing the School of Physics-a penthouse with a superb view over the city. The building itself, I was delighted to hear, was designed by Sir Basil Spence, whose work I knew about and was anxious to discover at first hand. I was handed the keys to the penthouse and the main entrance to the building and my host bade me goodnight saying that he would call the following day at 11 am to show me round.
