Let me say something now about chemistry in other countries that I’ve been involved in. I’ve indicated of course that I’ve had from time to time visiting professorships which have enabled me to visit various places, and I want first of all to tell you a bit about my involvement in America. I’ve indicated that many of the firms and institutions in America were funding some of our research, but I want to say that on one occasion and this is between 1967-‘68, that era, I held a visiting professorship for a six-month period where I was lecturing and teaching at Michigan State University, which is in the Midwest of America. And the set up within the university there enabled me not only to take part in their courses and learn about their education system but gave me an opportunity to go to conferences and visit other parts of America and indeed for the last three months of that, the children had school vacation so Kirsten came with the school... with the children and joined me there.

In Michigan State my main sponsor was Alex Popov, who was an ebullient inorganic chemist and the other person who was in charge of the laboratories was Andy Timnick. They were both originally from Russia, but had lived most of their life in America.