I am a retired research chemist. In 1962 I took a two-year post-doctoral fellowship at the National Research Council in Canada, and then afterwards, back in the UK, I joined ICI, initially at Welwyn Garden City but finally at Teesside.

I first became interested in astronomy as a very young teenager when the English night skies were usually clear, and the Milky Way was spectacular. I was motivated by the vivacity a clear night sky gives to the mystery of our existence. In that remote vastness, I thought, must be the answer, because with our eyes we feel it. The answer must also be in the atoms and molecules around us, but close to we don’t see it, so we don’t feel it. I think a change has occurred in astronomy in recent years, and the consequence intrigues me. Sixty years ago space-chemistry was unheard of, but not now. The thought that the chemical trigger of life probably arose before the earth formed excites me, and that finding out is mostly a matter for chemists.

I am not a telescope owner, unlike most of my colleagues. Better to be warm and think about what you can’t see than to be cold and hope to see what you can’t!