I am often asked if I had a mentor who propelled me towards a life in science. There was no personal mentor as such, but Fred Hoyle, more than anybody, was my role model, and he strongly influenced my career in several ways. I was one of many youngsters deeply influenced by Frontiers of Astronomy, which I read whilst in the Sixth Form at Woodhouse Grammar School in North Finchley. About the same time I was presented at Speech Day with Norton's Star Atlas by our local Member of Parliament, one Margaret Thatcher. These events set me squarely on the path of theoretical astronomy and cosmology.

Fred's science fiction also influenced me. I have vivid memories of the television series A for Andromeda, featuring the ravishing Julie Christie. His masterful book The Black Cloud continues to colour my thinking about the nature of life and consciousness. I was thrilled to discover that a professional scientist could combine fundamental research with fiction writing, bringing to both challenging new concepts and ideas.

The first Hoyle lecture I attended was delivered at the Royal Society in 1967, when I was a beginning PhD student at University College London. Fred spoke about the arrow of time, and the Wheeler-Feynman theory of electrodynamics. I can definitely trace my lifelong interest in the nature of time to this lecture. Indeed, I soon thereafter abandoned my research into atomic astrophysics and took up the problem of providing a quantum description of the Wheeler-Feynman theory for the remainder of my PhD thesis.