This volume describes the life of a scientist who was prominent and influential within his field and gained much satisfaction from his career. It is an account of his life at several outstanding universities in England and the USA and, at each stage, relates his work to his personal circumstances. It aims to impart the flavour of his career, both its pleasures and its pains and the personalities that were major influences on its development. For non-scientist family and friends, it outlines fragments of the science in a way that makes them readily accessible. On the other hand, it also is of interest for scientists because it reveals for the first time, events that were kept ‘under wraps’ until now. Notable among these are touch-and-go fights to secure funding for the research from both British and American sources, and his fraught relationship with tobacco companies arising from his studies of nicotine and tobacco addiction. Above all, it is about diversity; the diverse teaching and administrative tasks that university-based scientists take on in addition to research, the diversity of their work for the international societies that are key for the progress and expansion of research fields, the diverse countries from which members of his research group originated, and the diverse scientists from around the world who were major influences on his career.