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Honorary Fellow: Association For Scottish Literary Studies

“If we investigate only by physical and chemical means, we can only get physical and chemical answers.”

Sir Alister Hardy, FRS

Biog 1960 - 61 Technician

Oceanography was the prime interest of Dr Clifford Mortimer, FRS, when he was Director of the SMBA. For this work he needed an electronics assistant who would also operate aboard a fishing-boat. The project involved developing a temperature/salinity probe for deep-water surveys to detect oceanographic waves of a period that might be measured in weeks. Such a 600-fathom survey was carried out on the edge of the Continental Shelf, west of Ireland, before the Skipper hurried us all towards some much-needed shelter in Loch Swilly, County Donegal.

While with the SMBA I had the memorable experience of meeting Sir Alister Hardy, FRS, and with the rest of the staff had the opportunity to read a printer's proof of The Open Sea, Harry’s fascinating book illustrated with his own brilliant watercolours. He had been Chief Zoologist to the 1920's RRS Discovery expedition to the Antarctic and in the 1960's remained a scientist whose infectious enthusiasms simply seemed to increase with the passing years.

Despite my enjoyment of working with the SMBA we couldn't remain long there. A promised Council House had failed to materialise and with the family living in holiday digs, furniture still in a Glasgow store, a decision to make an early return to the mainland was unavoidable.

One thing of great value went with me from Cumbrae - admiration for Sir Alister Hardy's infectious enthusiasms - and this alerted me later to the published versions [The Living Stream & The Divine Flame] of the Gifford Lectures he gave at Aberdeen University.

A neo-Darwinian fore-runner of much recent debate, Hardy's philosophical works continue to stimulate thought. There is much to admire in his advocacy of informed speculation in all aspects of human endeavour, just as there is in his warnings and examples of mistaken assumptions of objectivity in science.

In conversation recently with a scientist who knew him at SMBA, this later work was dismissed and attributed to a sad decline towards senility. Hardy, of course, saw it coming when he good-humouredly acknowledged it might cause some to declare that Old Hardy had entirely lost his marbles.

Sir Alistair Hardy remains the most likeable, memorable and influential scientist I had the good fortune to encounter.