Photosynthesis Research 51: 1±26, 1997. c 1997 Kluwer Academic Publishers. Printed in the Netherlands. Personal perspective/Historical corner `Tell me where all past years are' David Alan Walker Cushat House, 6 Biddlestone Village, Rothbury, Northumberland NE65 7DT, UK Received 15 August 1996; accepted in revised form 24 October 1996 Key words: CAM chloroplasts, electrodes, orthophosphate, oscillations, oxygen Abstract This is about a young man who wished to go to sea like his father and ®nished up, instead, in photosynthesis. It describes how he served his apprenticeship in England and the United States and how he was then lucky enough to ®nd himself in the laboratory of Robin Hill, one of the all-time greats in this ®eld. It discusses some of the events that led, via mitochondria in castor beans and carboxylating enzymes in Crassulacean plants, to the isolation of fully functional chloroplasts and the manner in which the ®rst polarographic measurements of CO2-dependent O2 evolution contributed to present understanding of the movement of molecules through the chloroplast envelope. It describes some of the problems with materials and apparatus which were commonplace forty years ago and re¯ects on the advantages of working in foreign places and the pleasures of becoming a member of a truly international community. `Like a snail, unwillingly to school' (1823±1915) was an outstanding scientist of his period (Teale 1949). He also had a rare lucidity of commu- An illustrious French entomologist has a lot to answer nication, guaranteed to enthral any adult reader, let for. That and the war. I was already eleven in Septem- alone a child looking about him with fresh eyes. He ber 1939 and, at least in the north of England (where immediately raised my standing amongst my school- I was about to start attending the South Shields High boy peers by teaching me how to make touch-paper. At school for Boys), there was a long hiatus while air the time we enjoyed making smoke bombs out of old shelters were built and the younger teachers went off cinematograph ®lm which had somehow come into our to ®ght. Mercifully, although television had started possession. Once ignited, tightly rolled pieces of ®lm in Britain in the 1930s, that too was put on one side produced a very satisfactory amount of smoke and, while more important matters held sway. So what was when generated in the wrong places, an equally sat- a small boy to do apart from playing football, getting isfactory response by our elders and betters. Ignition into mischief and wondering what little girls were all was a problem however and touch-paper,allowing time about? Reading became paramount. By the time that for retreat, the answer. Fabre had described how the I was four, long before infants' school, my mother `ef¯orescence' that emerges from cellar walls is com- (Dorothy) and my `mad' aunt had taught me to read, posed (I still don't know why) of potassium nitrate. thereby giving me the ®nest gift that any child could Cellars were largely unknown in South Shields but, by receive. I learned to read fast and to read widely. That then, there was no shortage of air-raid shelters. The is how I `met' Jean Henri Fabre, happily in translation, feathery white growth on their walls was duly collect- because tuition in French was now in the hands of a ed and dissolved in saucers of water through which lady of uncertain age, who preferred chatting about we ran strips of newspaper. As soon as these strips the problems of wartime shopping to teaching. Fabre were dried we were in business. Friends, once scepti- cal, stayed to applaud. Adults lamented and threatened dire consequences. I acquired an undeserved reputa- Written at the invitation of Govindjee PIPS NO.:124537 (M) BIO2KAP *124537* pres701b.tex; 2/07/1997; 15:17; v.6; p.1 4 tion as a ¯edgling chemist. Understandably, despite an such an unlikely step. However, swept along by the excellent chemistry teacher, I didn't want to become a pharmacist's son, four of us applied to read botany at chemist. I wanted to go to sea like my father (Cyril), King's College Newcastle (then part of the University who in his youth had travelled to the far corners of of Durham). What impelled the others towards botany the earth in a succession of tramp steamers. In fact if I can't tell. Chemistry would have been my natural my father had still been a ship's of®cer at that time choice but then, as I have explained, this was preclud- he would have been lucky to survive the war. Know- ed by accidents of school time-tabling. In the event, it ing this full well, he would not hear of his only child scarcely mattered because I was called upon to serve in embarking on a sea going apprenticeship at a time when the armed forces `for the duration of hostilities only'. it was still possible for merchant ships to carry boys Of course, in 1946, `hostilities' had already ceased of ®fteen to their deaths. This left me in a quandary. but His Majesty's Government pursued its own inane Staying at school meant taking the `Higher Certi®- agenda, just as Her Majesty's Government does today. cate', an examination that demanded competence in Naturally I was too young to appreciate the fact that, three principal subjects. I sought to take chemistry, had hostilities not ceased I might not be writing this biology and physics but physics came with a require- now. So many, just a year or two younger than me, had ment for mathematics and some quirk of time-tabling endured all manner of dangers and privations which my and under-staf®ng meant that chemistry, my ®rst love, generation was to be spared. So far as I was concerned, had to go. A major consolation was the inclusion of however, being handed over to the tender mercies of `English Literature'. During this period it was very The Royal Navy meant incarceration for two years of unusual for English children, already embarked upon my young life in conditions more arduous, so far as I science, to be allowed to study literature. For me, it can gather, than those currently imposed on prisoners added to a love of Shakespeare and to my native lan- in British jails. So there was rigorous discipline, cor- guage which I have never lost. This and a changing poral punishment for trivial offences, little food (and world of language has been central to my life. It is a none that was ®t to eat) and most of all cold. For three matter of immense regret to me that I never acquired months during the winter of 1947, still the coldest in competence in a language other than my own (although Britain this century, I was to spend 12 hours a day, in I can get by in North American). At the same time, I four hour `watches' on guard duty, often rooted to one have found it an immense and humbling privilege that spot outside the main gate. Much of this was common English has become so universally the language of sci- experience. Many of my generation, who survived the ence that I have been able to communicate as freely war in continental Europe as children and teenagers, with friends and colleagues across the world as I have had experiences beside which mine pale into insignif- at home. Indeed, as a traditional purist I am increas- icance. I dwell on it now simply to explain why, if it ingly dismayed to ®nd that the quality of written and were not already in my genes, I have (as well as an spoken English is higher in the overseas scienti®c com- immense contempt for most politicians) acquired an munity than it is amongst many native speakers. As a ingrained skepticism which is every bit as useful to Welsh friend once rightly said, his English was bet- a practising scientist as it was in the days of Robert ter than mine because he had been taught it at school Boyle (1661). whereas I had only `picked it up'. `Naval' service (I was in the `Fleet Air Arm' but neither sailed nor ¯ew) was not without its compensa- tions. Naturally, there were lasting friendships of the `Full of strange oaths' sort that are formed amongst fellow sufferers in air- ports and the like. Strangely enough, there was also Leaving school in 1946 with modest training in sci- a continuation of my scienti®c apprenticeship. During ence there was the question of what to do next. One the war, the Navy had discovered that young men with school friend happened to be the son of a pharmacist a grounding in physics became very confused when and came therefore from a family which had experi- they were confronted with radar. To them, mechanical ence of universities. Without such a background none short circuits which constituted electrical open circuits of the rest of my immediate circle had even contem- seemed to defy logic. Conversely, those with a bio- plated the possibility of going on to university. Nei- logical bent took these matters in their stride, perhaps ther, I am bound to conclude, can our teachers have because they knew no better or perhaps because they believed that we had enough ability to bene®t from already believed that electronic devices, like living pres701b.tex; 2/07/1997; 15:17; v.6; p.2 5 organisms, are intrinsically perverse and beyond full Kalanchoe leaves in the dark did so as a result of dark understanding.