My grandfather was a man who didn’t like to compromise. A rural Welsh boy who had made it to Cambridge University and then on to a career as a scientist, he became a conscientious objector during the Second World War. Throughout his life he rarely backed down from confrontation. He had little time for children, and his early gifts to me—always books—demonstrated what I can only call an impatience for me to grow up. For my eighth birthday, he gave me an illustrated collection of works by...
