"My particular friends at that time were Mike Thompson, Gordon "Ginger" Williams, Peter Rowe and David Crick. Mike had a very impressive collection of fossils and it was he who introduced me to this hobby. Peter and I used to vie for who could climb the highest trees and were known consequently as being somewhat "mad." One afternoon Peter and I were out looking for birds' eggs and we decided to search in the rafters of a barn. In the course of climbing around upside down in the rafters, Peter fell badly about 10 feet and broke or sprained his ankle. Since he couldn't walk, I hoisted him on to my back and piggy-backed him about half a mile across the fields towards home. At this point we arrived at the village vicarage, which included a rookery and some very interesting trees. I set Peter down at the foot of a tree and climbed up it to investigate a wood pigeon's nest that we had had our eyes on for several weeks."
