Page 22 - PERIODIC Magazine Issue 5

Ta les of the Part II

In June we celebrated a century of the Part II year by having a special
celebration for this year’s cohort. Thank you very much to our alumni who
shared their stories of this formative experience, ranging from romance to
health and safety horrors, and some words of wisdom.

Ronald J Clarke (Keble 1937)
Aged now 97, I write in response to your interest in past
Part II experiences. Now difficult to comprehend, no
choice of subject matter was offered in the wartime years
of 1940-41. I was instructed to work on a research project
in arsenical blister gases in the Dyson Perrins Laboratory.
It was believed that Hitler might well use various types of
toxic gases, which fortunately never occurred, though I
could never avoid some hand blisters in my work! I was
supervised by Dr Parkes and overall by the distinguished and studied theology to become a Baptist Minister, but
Prof. Robert Robinson. It was not a particularly attractive the Geology job helped me financially. My Part II went
piece of research, but was, however, carried on by Basil very well, otherwise I would never have had the chance
Thewlis and published in a joint paper around 1947. This of a doctorate, and it was during this period that I fell in
work, along with the splendid tutorial system at Oxford, love and became engaged to my present wife. I grew one
helped me greatly in developing initiative and critical particularly large yttrium aluminium garnet (YAG), too big
thinking. My subsequent industrial life was largely in food for our experiments, and I had this stone cut and set for her
research, much in the fascinating area of instant coffee. In engagement ring.
retirement, I wrote and co-edited numerous articles on the
subject of coffee in all respects.
Nick Fisher (Magdalen 1960)
In all the well-deserved celebrations of the Oxford
Michael Ball (Brasenose 1956) Chemistry Part II as a unique grounding in research
I did my Part II working with Dr Geoff Garton, preparing experience, I hope the alternative of research in the history
synthetic garnets doped with various rare earth elements. of chemistry for those who do not see themselves as
I was producing single crystals, and another student, Jim laboratory chemists will not be forgotten. Many of Britain’s
Roberts, was making polycrystalline samples. On the day foremost historians of science have entered the profession
of our vivas his was scheduled for the morning, mine for through this portal. For me, the Radcliffe Science Library
the afternoon. Jim came back and told us that he had been was my laboratory, where I quickly found myself hooked
taken aback. The examiner, Mr Powell, (nicknamed Tiny) on the intricacies of mid-nineteenth-century French
Reader in Crystallography, began by producing handfuls organic chemistry, and I went on to have a very rewarding
of large natural garnet crystals which he presented to Jim, career in the history of science, at first in Glasgow and
asking whether he made anything like them, and poor latterly at the University of Aberdeen.
Jim was flummoxed. I went prepared with several tubes
of my crystals in my pockets, and when Tiny made the
same opening move, I responded with a firm “Yes”, and Nick Vanston (Balliol 1960)
produced my crystals. The other examiners could hardly J. M .Pratt was my supervisor and the topic was the
conceal their amusement. But Tiny never forgot me, and trans-effect in cobalamins. One experiment involved
when the Professor of Geology needed someone to teach measuring the IR spectrum of cobalamin in the presence
a 1st year course in Chemistry for geology students, Tiny of various concentrations of cyanide ions. The complex is
remembered and recommended me after I had finished very sensitive to visible light, so the measurements had to
my doctorate 3 years later. I eventually changed course be made in pitch darkness. This entailed returning to the

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Periodic The Magazine of the Department of Chemistry