The invitation to come here to the University of Cardiff to celebrate the memory of one of this city's most distinguished sons, Henry Loyn, was something I could never have thought of refusing. I admired Henry immensely as a senior colleague; and I much appreciated, as did so many of my generation, both his learning and his encouragement. I am particularly glad and grateful that Pat Loyn is here in the audience and indeed my hostess during this visit: to remember Henry is to remember what ‘constant and indispensable support’ she gave him. I still regret that Henry and I never did manage to belong to the same college, as in the mid-1980s it was hoped might happen; but after reacquainting, and acquainting, myself with his work in the course of preparing this lecture, I am more keenly aware than ever of my good fortune in having worked for a decade as Henry's colleague in the University of London.

At the outset I also want to thank two other friends who were very close to Henry: one is Nicholas Brooks, whose British Academy memoir, published in 2003, has illuminated so many aspects of Henry's life and work; and the other is Alan Deyermond, who wrote, movingly and wittily, about Henry's Westfield years in the volume of Henry's papers which he and Nicholas, together with Peter Denley, helped produce in 1992.