The reverse journey went well and it was an education to witness the near midnight bustle of Friday night Reading. 'Twas never thus in Brighouse.
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This evoked an immediate memory for me.
1976, I had contributed a chapter on meat products to the book Food Microscopy edited by my much missed friend and fellow food microscopist John Vaughan, sometime professor of food science at Queen Elizabeth College London. As a result of that book a number of us Brits were invited to a conference in Dallas.
John was originally from Merthyr Tydfil in South Wales, as his accent immediately revealed. John was from a previous generation of microscopists from myself and the days of monocular microscopes had, like many of his vintage, left him in need of very thick glasses (perhaps he should have been a referee!). These thick glasses gave him, misleadingly, a bit of a look of an innocent abroad. His professorial inaugural lecture was entitled "The oldest profession". Later microscopist like myself had the luxury of binocular microscopes and were taught to relax our eyes when peering down the microscope and let the microscope do the focussing. Gazing into infinity as it were.
As we explored Dallas, John's catchphrase was "'Twas never like this in Merthyr Tydfil" - fond memories!