ABSTRACT
Shortly after our return from California, I was invited to give a talk at the University of Stirling in Scotland, a university founded a few years earlier on an idyllic campus with the university buildings scattered around a loch with a hill behind that formed the southern edge of the Highlands. I was invited by Bill Phillips an old friend from Sussex who explained that the department had now sorted out its teaching and wanted to build up its research, planning to appoint six new professors. At a time when most departments had one or at most two professorships, this was indeed ambitious. Was I interested in running the research side of the department? Hilary and I travelled up and liked both the university and the neighbouring town of Bridge of Allan, a Victorian resort town just outside Stirling, and despite Stuart’s offer to attempt to get me a professorship back in Sussex, it seemed too exciting a development to miss.
