[2] Frank Harmsworth Allen was born in 1944 in Reading, Berkshire and raised in Pangbourne, a village 6 miles away and close to the River Thames.

He gained a First in chemistry and a PhD in crystallography at Imperial College London, and in 1968 moved to Vancouver to take up a post-doctoral fellowship, working with James Trotter[3] at the University of British Columbia.

He was a mainstay of Sawston hockey club … He sustained frequent injuries, including a broken nose, as is always a possibility when several men in close proximity to one another wave heavy sticks and propel hard spheres at high speed.

[4]He also had a dry sense of humour: Retino-rectal Connexions SIR, –Dr Robertson (Nature, 233, 435; 1971) refers to an annoying visual condition which he calls tunnel vision.

University Chemical Laboratory,Lensfield Road,Cambridge CB2 lEW[8]Frank married Sandra J Newman (Sandy) in 1966.