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Saddened at the passing of my colleague Jon Hodge – when I first left the lab bench and moved into history and philosophy of science (HPS), I found myself on a very steep learning curve. But throughout this tough time, Jon was always welcome source of support and inspiration. I learned a lot from him, but perhaps the most important lesson he taught me was in a 2016 public lecture that he gave with Dr. Laura Sellers in which he warned against the allure of reductive, simplistic narratives in what is a very complex world. It was intended at the time as advice to budding historians to think critically about popular historical narratives but as I look around at the world in 2025, I think that Jon’s cautionary words echo far beyond the lecture theatres and seminar rooms of academia…Thanks Jon, you’ll be missed.

Had they still been around, I’m sure that, as keen cricket fans, Leeds based scientists William Astbury & Florence Bell would have taken a break from work on the DNA structure & wool to be at Headingley yesterday for England’s stunning victory in the Test Match against India.

Having written a book that, thanks to Astbury & Bell’s work on DNA, contains both science – and cricket thanks to the legendary 1981 Headingley Ashes, I was delighted that I could be there myself yesterday – right over the road from Astbury’s former home on Kirkstall Lane.

And a MASSIVE thanks must also go to Butlers and Boundary Hotel on Cardigan Road, Headingley Leeds who helped save the day (along with England’s batting!) by kindly providing secure laptop storage for those of us who had come along hoping to sneak in some work during breaks for lunch and tea!

As the first England vs India test match starts in Headingley, Leeds, today I’m sure that, if he were still around, keen cricket fan & physicist William Astbury would have taken a break from trailblazing science to stroll through the Len Hutton gates opposite his home on Kirkstall Lane and enjoy the game.

And as she was reputed to be a bit handy with a cricket bat (as well as X-ray crystallography), I reckon that physicist Florence Bell who, working in Astbury’s lab in 1938, first showed that X-rays could reveal the regular, ordered structure of DNA, might well have joined him.

And although I don’t know whether scientists Archer Martin & Richard Synge were cricket fans meanwhile, their 1952 Nobel Prize awarded for work done in a lab only 5 mins walk from the cricket ground is another reason for Headingley to be on the map today – a little historical gem for the crowds of international visitors to look out for on their way to the ground!

And finally – not to forget father and son science team, William & Lawrence Bragg who lived on Grosvenor Rd, Headingley & who jointly won 1915 Nobel in Physics for groundbreaking method of X-ray crystallography that eventually unravelled DNA structure (amongst others!). So good luck England today, but even if things don’t work out on the cricket pitch – there’s still plenty for Headingley to be proud of!

Ah, it’s just not quite as catchy a lyric, is it? But I would so love to think that similar scenes of jubilation erupted on streets of #Leeds back in 1915 to celebrate the award of the Nobel Prize in Physics to father and son team William & Lawrence Bragg for their invention of X-ray crystallography, & again in 1952 for Nobel in Chemistry to Archer Martin & Richard Synge for their development of partition chromatography – both of which unravelled our understanding of #insulin & #DNA! Thanks to the Clothworkers Company of London for inviting me to talk on this subject last week….and also, well done to #LUFC!!! The crowds and Kaiser Chiefs may well have sung ‘I predict a riot ‘ yesterday, but as for today, I predict an awful lot of sore heads across West Yorkshire…