Goodbye Ian Graham

"Well, I was initially trained as a physicist. After doing only one year at Cambridge, I went into the Navy, because this was 1943. And because of having some knowledge of physics, I was sent off to the main radar research establishment in Malvern, Worcestershire, which, from my point of view, was idyllic because here were some extraordinary geniuses working at full blast, trying to produce new kinds of radar or ways of jamming other kinds of radar. [...] And then, eventually, I was demobilized and went back to college and got my degree. And worked for three years in the first laboratory that had been set up at the National Gallery working on problems of varnishes, on paintings and things like that, which was certainly very interesting but I didn't really feel that I was going to spend my life doing that and rather dropped out.

And then I had the opportunity to buy, for next to nothing, an extraordinary Rolls Royce, a 1927 open car with a body like a torpedo, coming to a point at the tail, very stylish and unique because, in those days, each Rolls Royce had a body made to the order of its purchaser. So I ran around in that for a bit but I bought it solely with the idea of selling it to somebody enormously rich in Hollywood. And so, having given myself two years enjoyment of it, I shipped it over to New York. I spent a little time there earning some pocket money for the next part of the journey and then set off. But, for extraneous reasons, I didn't go straight to Hollywood, anyway. I thought the road leading there, the highway leading there didn't look very interesting. And so I...

[...] for irrelevant reasons, I didn't set off in a southwesterly direction but rather to the south, because it seemed more interesting to pass through Virginia and the Carolinas and so on, and then I got to Texas and visited the King Ranch. And, near the King Ranch, I went to a gas station and there was a big sign on it saying, "Last gas before Mexico". Mexico? Hmm... That's an idea!

So I went back to the nearest crossing, which took me over to Matamoros, a town without the least charm, and I pursued my way through incredibly boring countryside with horses that would dash out from behind a bush. And I finally got to Mexico City and had no idea what I was going to do when I did get to Mexico City, because I'd hoped to find a couple of friends there, but neither of them happened to be there. So as a matter of course, I went to the museum -- not the present museum, that didn't exist -- a rather dingy, dusty one near the Zocalo [perhaps the Templo Mayor Museum?], and there was confronted by a large rectangular slab of stone, very neatly carved, with figures and rows and columns of funny square designs with sort of wiggles. And I scratched my head, wondering what on earth those could be, because it looked like writing, but I knew there hadn't been any writing in the new world. So that was a mystery." [source]