Hugh Huxley and I had been Heads of Divisions and I became Director when... after Sydney Brenner left in 1986, and I was Director for ten years. Originally it was mean to be for seven years, which would have taken me to the retiring age, but I was renewed after seven years because my would-be successor, who turned out to be Richard Henderson and it was clearly... now the current Director... he when approached didn't feel ready to do that, so I was asked to stay on for another three years, but by then, I was fairly... you know, I knew how to do it, and so on.
[Q] Initially, you found it an extra work load?
Oh, yes. I did. Yes... extra work... yes it was. It was... well, I had to deal with Whitehall. I didn't get any honours in my Nobel Prize, didn't even get a CBE which was the current... the current recognition. Nowadays, people are made a Sir even before they get a Nobel Prize, but I didn't even get a CBE. I don't know what happened. I mustn't have been put up for it, but I can hazard a guess at why. And then in 1988 I was offered a Knighthood. MRC put me up, and they said I really ought to accept it, against the tradition of the LMB where Perutz had refused because he didn't want to be different from his colleagues, and Crick had refused because he was going to be the great commoner, and for other reasons. I did plead with him and say, 'Please be a knight.' Sir Francis Crick goes trippingly on the tongue, you see, but he wouldn't satisfy us. Incidentally, I did ask him. I said, 'Why not?' He said, 'I won't accept any honours which carry no function.' So I said, 'Would you be prepared to be a member of the House of Lords, where you can vote and you can affect legislation?' I think he was quite taken aback. He didn't expect that, he said, 'I'd have to think about it.' But in the end, he did accept the OM, which was an honour, a very high honour, which carries no function, other than dining and lunching with the Queen every five years, and having some special dinners at odd occasions, and so on. So he did accept that. But in fact, it was useful in Whitehall, because the... so I got involved with the MRC and quite a lot of administration. The MRC was changing over from... from... in a way, Jim Gowans had been the original Head of the MRC. They used to be called the Secretary, which is the old name like Pepys was Secretary of the Admiralty, but in Dai Rees's time I think he began to be called the Chief Executive, which is the modern term. And I got involved with them, and I got involved with technology transfer, and that was pretty useful.
