During the period of lockdown in the Covid pandemic, it seemed a good idea to take the opportunity to look back over my career and attempt to articulate the main objectives which I sought to promote in it. This is partly for my own benefit in seeing whether a theme or themes emerge, and in case anyone else may be interested. When the editors of this volume saw it, they asked if they could include a version of it in the publication, and I was happy to agree. Since I must contextualise this to some extent, I will need to provide some biographical information as well.

I can pass quickly over my pre-University days. I was born in Johannesburg, South Africa, on 2 July 1942. My father, who had been born in Amsterdam, joined the Holland-Afrika (shipping) Lijn as an accountant, and in the 1930s, probably in search of adventure, went out to its office in Beira, Mozambique (then Portuguese East Africa). He was there when the Netherlands was invaded, so went to South Africa, where he married my mother (a South African of British descent) and joined the South African Army, spending time in Egypt. In the early 1950s they moved to the then Southern Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe), partly, as I remember, because they were very upset by the victory of the Nationalist Party in South Africa in 1948.

My father had a job at a distillery, which made gin and whisky at a plant some 15 miles outside Salisbury (now Harare). There were three houses for staff, one of which was ours, so we were very isolated. The countryside surrounding it was mostly bush or farmland, and on one occasion on a long walk I remember suddenly coming across a group of buck, I think kudu. But I spent much time listening to the records (78 rpm) my father bought, being bowled over by Beethoven‘s Seventh Symphony, thus acquiring a love for classical music which has had important consequences for me.

Later we moved into town, my father starting up his own accountancy firm, and I attended the Jesuit-run St George‘s College.