Eklogai Autobiografikai

The village where I grew up was one of two located on either side of the Roman fort of Anderida (or Anderitum). Archaeologists have dated the construction of this fort to around 290 C.E., during the reign of Carausias, who had declared himself Emperor of Britain and Northern Gaul. The land on which the fort was built was originally a peninsula surrounded by sea, or at least by a lagoon separated from the open sea by a shingle bank, and the outer curtain walls were roughly elliptical in shape. Substantial parts of the Roman walls still stand. Below is a photograph (taken by me in 2007) showing the wall close to the western entrance to the fort. The Roman wall continues round the northern side of the enclosure, towering above the road joining our village, the village of Westham, to the village of Pevensey, located on the eastern side of the Roman fort. But to walk from one village to the other, one did not need to walk along the road: taking a direct route eastwards alo...

During my schooldays in East Sussex, schools in the county, schools outside the county boroughs, other than private fee-paying schools, were run by, or at least financed by and overseen by, the Education Committee of East Sussex County Council. Instrumental music tuition was provided by peripatetic music teachers employed by the East Sussex Music School (the forerunner of what is now called the East Sussex Music Service). In primary school, when I was seven years old, forms were given out to be filled in and returned by the parents of any children wishing to avail of piano and violin lessons. So I started learning the piano aged seven. It was agreed that if I made sufficient progress I could start learning the violin as well: accordingly I started learning the violin at the age of eight. I had the same teacher for both instruments from the time I started learning in primary school to the time that I matriculated at Cambridge University. She herself had studied piano with Harold C...

The following two (rather overexposed) photographs, taken by me in 1969, show the Mathematisches Forschungsinsitut Oberwolfach (Oberwolfach Research Institute for Mathematics), located in the Black Forest, in south-western Germany. Well, I wasn't such a precocious mathematician as to be invited to discuss my research at the Institute at the age of ten! But my father attended a conference there. Consequently we made a family holiday, travelling across France to visit friends in Geneva, then headed though the Swiss Alps before heading for the Institute. I have not visited the place since these photos were taken. I recall that we slept as a family in a large bedroom, with brass bedsteads and turret windows, in the old Schloss. (Or maybe it might have been merely a hunting lodge.) I understand that the Schloss where we stayed was shortly afterwards demolished. My father was of course tied up attending the conference: my mother, elder brother and myself spent our time walkin...

I was first given a camera when I was about eight years old: an old camera that had probably been used by my elder brother until he was provided with a better one. Over the years I rarely took photos of other people: the family thought this rather odd on my part. But it seems that people figure more prominently in my earliest photos. The photos below are scans of slide photos taken in 1969 (according to the processing date I took off the slides when scanning them). Only the first of them would have been taken by me: it shows my elder brother walking into a snow patch on a Scottish mountainside. The other two photos were clearly taken by my brother with the camera that had been passed on to me, given that both of them show me, at the age of nine, with my father. Even after all these years, I can remember where these photographs were taken. The family were on holiday in Scotland. This holiday took place in the Whitsun half term holiday, as we invariably went on holiday togeth...

It may happen that some memory comes to mind which may be trivial or insignificant in its own right, but nevertheless, pursuing the memory can bring up all sorts of other memories that might otherwise have remained buried deep in the mind. Following through many avenues a number of the memories embedded in this story has retrieved from the depth of my mind many recollections from my school days that otherwise might have remained deeply buried there. One day, at the age of thirteen or fourteen, in a quiet corner of the station platform, the train to take me homewards being due in a quarter of an hour or so, I experienced a sudden impulse and, acting on it, took off my school tie, put it in my pocket, and then walked back, somewhat awkward and embarrassed, but nevertheless determined, and rejoined my friends waiting on the platform. Now the memories and thoughts associated with this recollection take me back to a time a few years before my impulsive action on the station platform. ...