"British Flies" to help me with identifications.  When it arrived it was some colossal sum like 7 pounds 10 shillings, and I was horrified.  I wrote to Eric, explaining that I was a schoolboy on 10 shillings a week pocketmoney, but I was really keen on Diptera and felt I needed the book.  Back came an immediate reply - the price was reduced and I was allowed to pay it off at so much a month.  I have never forgotten that - an act of kindness and encouragement which I now understand was so characteristic of your father.

 

During my time at the BMNH and afterwards, I met with Eric many times.  He was always full of fun and with a fund of good stories, and of course a wonderful source of books and reprints for the serious entomologist.  Soon after we moved from London to Goring, we went for a walk one evening to the Hartslock Hill Reserve a mile from our house, and there, to my astonishment, were Eric and Ivy just coming down from the Hill.  Eric was one of those who went from time to time to guard the rare Monkey orchids during the flowering season, and this was typical of him - he was a real enthusiast for natural history.