[2] From there he won an Isle of Ely County Major Scholarship and entered University College, Nottingham.
In 1938 he gained the highest chemistry marks of any candidate in the University of London BSc external degree examination.
He was an experimental scientist for the next eight years,[1] and In due course joined the medicinal chemistry section; his main interest was the fate of drugs in the animal body.
During this time, the research director Clifford Paine[3] spotted that Spinks's interests and skills lay beyond chemistry, and recommended that he return to academia for a while.
Alfred Spinks married Patricia Kilner on 19 Dec 1946 at St Mary's Church, Disley.