@mskathleenquinn I have never made it there and maybe never will, but nuclear weapons changed my life in different way. In 1981, Professor Mike Pentz, who led the formation of the OU science department, founded Scientists Against Nuclear Arms (SANA). I was at Bristol Uni. doing a Post Doc. 1/
@mskathleenquinn I went to hear him speak. What an amazing speaker he was; I signed up on the spot. Within a months it seemed I was on the National Coordinating Committee. It kind of killed my passion for science, something I'd been in love with since a young boy. I left research 2/
@mskathleenquinn I went into the world of industry and in my spare time spent a lot of the 80s working in the background helping to develop tools for the anti-nuclear movement (like a Program to assess impact of nuclear attacks run on an Amstrad PCW 8256, given free to local authorities). 3/
@mskathleenquinn I also married and brought up two girls. Eventually I was pretty burnt out and stepped back from nuclear activism - after all, we got rid of cruise. It might explain why it took a while for me to realise there was another great elephant in the room - global warming. 4/
@mskathleenquinn This time, it was Naomi Klein, and her book This Changes Everything which was the kick up ***I needed. I have a signed copy from when she spoke at the Cheltenham Book Festival. But I never lost my love for science, even if things turned out different to my boyhood dreams 5/
@mskathleenquinn But damn you, nuclear weapons, and damn you fossil fuels, and the same old, same old vested-interest apologists. 6/6
