In writing this book we have focussed above all on what we see as most interesting and valuable in the interviews. Yet, from the start it also seemed important to reflect on what is missing. Initially, that arose in terms of people. We noted significant researchers who we could not interview because they had died, or were unwell, or – rarely – did not want to record a life story in terms of our aims. We began with researchers who had direct experience of fieldwork research, but later added a group of purely quantitative researchers, and another group who came to Britain from elsewhere in the Empire. We were well aware that given funding and time many others could have been included – particularly, those working at the margins with other disciplines.

With our draft book sent to our publishers, we decided to look again at how far our Pioneers had responded to the key social changes in their working lifetimes, and the extent to which they had addressed through fieldwork research what now seem to be crucial issues for our future. One gap is immediately obvious. There is very little sign of interest in the environment and climate change.

Religious differences, now a major social flashpoint, were also largely sidelined by post-war researchers. However, we should note that anthropologists working abroad both before and after the Second World War did document and attempt to interpret local traditional religious rituals. Indeed, Raymond Firth, who as a young man was Superintendent of a Presbyterian Sunday School, later wrote two books on religion in Tikopia – The Work of the Gods in Tikopia (1940) and Rank and Religion in Tikopia: A Study in Polynesian Paganism and Conversion to Christianity (1970) – and later examples include the work of Bruce Kapferer, Ruth Finnegan or Mary Douglas. Among sociologists, however, Colin Bell was unusual in conducting a survey of religious attendance in Banbury. Robert Moore was a lifelong Methodist and made a point of regularly attending a variety of churches and chapels while researching his community studies.