So Peierls was wonderful and he not only gave me a job but he had me in his house as a guest. I was a house guest of Peierls the whole of that first year in Birmingham. Genia Peierls, the wife of Peierls, was like a mother in a way my own mother never had been. She's a very warm person. She had four kids of her own, always had the house full of students, and many students came through her house with just marvellous memories of her.

[Q] And you spoke English or you spoke Russian?

With her I always spoke English. She had no patience with my sort of half-baked Russian. She spoke of course a very strange kind of English but it was clear and well understood. So, I got along extraordinarily well with her, and she was what made Birmingham really worthwhile for me, and Rudi also. Rudi was much too busy. He had heavy responsibilities as teacher, and head of the department and administration. He had to do almost everything himself.