I will share three recollectons with you.
The first occured when I was travelling in 1971, as technical secretary
with the Commission on Mining and the Environment, (Max, Professor Lord
Zuckerman, Sir Jack Longland, Professor Kidson and Sir Frederick Warner)
in a small Gulfstream jet en route to view Wheal Jane tin mine in
Cornwall. Max, in his enthusiasm for pointing out landmarks he had
visited on the ground, kept calling the rest of the party to peer out of
the windows first on one side then the other. The plane started
zigzagging and the co-pilot came scurrying through to say the captain
was having difficulty maintaining a straight line. Would all members
kindly resume their seats and fasten their seatbelts. It is the only
occasion on which I ever saw Max looking slightly chastened.
My second memory is of a visit to Stoke on Trent in the 1970's when we
were inspecting the progress of a recent LUC tree planting programme on
reclaimed slag heaps. I asked Max how he thought the trees were getting
on. His answer was that there had been Oak trees in Stoke 3000 years
ago and there would be Oak trees again in 500 years time, so progress
over 2 or 3 years was hardly of significance. ( I am pleased to say the
trees are now over 8 metres high).
I realised then how Max thought in centuries rather than years, like the
rest of us, and always had a geological timescale in mind.
My final comment is just to pass on a remark that my wife, Viv, made as
we travelled back with Caledonian MacBrayne from our first visit to Eigg
off the West coast of Scotland.
'How lucky we all are that Max had the foresight to conserve islands
like Rum and Eigg'
