Cambridge and a First Meeting

In September 1960, I found myself preparing to leave home for the first time. In those days the normal way to travel from Sri Lanka to England was by ship. Although air travel was rapidly coming into fashion it remained a considerably more expensive option reserved mostly for business travellers and the rich. On a warm September evening I sailed away from the port of Colombo aboard the P&O Liner SS Orcades, wistfully watching a palm-fringed coastline recede slowly into the distance. A two-week voyage took us through the Suez Canal, via Naples, Gibralter and Marseilles to Southampton. Nowadays such a voyage would be regarded as a luxury cruise. But my enjoyment of this new experience was hindered by sickness due to rough seas. I spent a lot of the journey in my cabin feeling sorry for myself whilst reading and re-reading Fred's Nature of the Universe, a book I still regard as one of the greatest classics of popular science…