My father told me once that he had had a conversation with Tony, around the time that I arrived, in which Tony had expressed some regret at the cost, in terms of family life, of his choice to pursue international academic stardom: the dinners left quietly on trays outside the study door, and missing the kids growing up.

Dad took that to heart, and made the decision to slip sideways from the academic track and into the operating systems team at the QUB Computer Centre (back when everything was so much more bespoke), and thence into special projects. No more papers, no wild life of travel, but rather a very present parent, whose study door was open to enquiring young minds.

So thank you, Tony, for what you gave me.