I came here, in Sussex, in '65. It's clear that... It was Peter Medawar that got me the job, I think it's clear. He was one of the advisors... scientific advisors to the university, which was a new university, and I was given the job of being the first Dean of Biology here.

[Q] That was big promotion for you, wasn't it?

Oh yes. But it did mean that I was going to have to spend at least some time administering and running things, and so on, which I'd never bothered to do before, and it did therefore mean some sort of interruption to my science. And I was a bit reluctant to do that, I'm not a good administrator, I hate running things. On the other hand, I was very impatient with the way that biology was being taught at University College, and indeed, in most British universities. It was still dominated by departments of zoology and botany and genetics and biochemistry who never talked to one another. And it seemed to me very nineteenth century stuff, a lot that we were teaching. And it did give me an opportunity of starting a department in which biology was a unified science and in which it was, sort of, taught in a modern way. So I couldn't easily refuse. But I think Peter suggested to them that they might offer me the job... I know he did.