I've been walking across London past Big
Ben Westminster Abbey
to the school where I was a pupil from
the age of 13 to 17 Westminster School
which is next to the Abbey and where I
learnt chemistry and I've come to the
building where I did learn chemistry
it's now the art department and the only
part that is left and looks like it did
when I was here is this room which is
the prep room where the technician mr.
Watts used to work and I didn't have
lessons in here though I did I think on
occasion do some glassblowing here but
you can see there's still the fume
cupboard and the old blackboard but it's
now got something about art on it and if
you look out the window you can see the
houses of parliament in fact the House
of Lords I didn't expect to find
anything here that I recognised next
door there's the big lab which I learnt
in from the age of 15 onwards and that
has all changed all the benches have
gone and so on but it's still
recognizable but this looks remarkably
unchanged in fact their drawers down
there labelled barrettes barrettes of
verdure titrations I have no idea what
gas Purex are what I also brought for
the state of nostalgia was my first
chemistry practical book it's quite
funny to look at the first experiments I
don't know what the first experiments
that you did but mine on the 5th of
October 1961 when I was 13 was burning
of magnesium I didn't do very well I got
6 out of 10 there's this experiment in
which I was measuring the gases
dissolved in water the idea is that you
boiled the water in here and the gases
went into this tube here and you
measured the volume of gas and it was a
disaster it said the flask was now
heated for about five minutes with a
Bunsen burner and then
another one was used until the water
boiled this it did violently and the
violent oscillation set up in the
delivery tube broke the Judeo meta tube
above the surface of the water wrecking
the experiment yes I remember I was I
was devastated and I got 6 out of 10
again then we burnt some quite exciting
things so here is the combustion of
sodium in oxygen so this is Deaf
liberating spoon and there's sodium
burning in oxygen seems a slightly mad
experiment because you have water here
but you have a lump of sodium just above
the water
it feels really quite strange I've never
dreamt when I was 13 or 14 coming back
here after all
65 is very old although it's dead and
and so I never imagined coming back here
and certainly wouldn't imagine coming
back here as a professor of chemistry
even less as foreign secretary of the
Royal Society but it's really fun I
really like the chemistry labs and I
knew as much as the chemistry teacher so
I was never very frightened in chemistry
lessons I am Tony Roberts a retired
doctor now and I taught Martin chemistry
50 years ago well Pat Martin taught me
chemistry 50 years ago and his the only
pupil I've kept in touch with over the
last 50 years other lessons were
dreadful maths I nearly failed maths in
one year and got 13% I think in the exam
but here for chemistry lab I felt at
home so I have good feelings here
perhaps when we go to other places I'm
giving the lecture in the hall where I
took all my exams then I might get
butterflies
it's quite a strange feeling then quite
excited great pleasure to welcome back
[Applause]
he was always been enthusiastic about
chemistry yes yes it was a delight to
teach him I'm particularly pleased to
see my former chemistry teacher Tony
Roberts who is sitting there helps you
wave your hands silly and who I think is
probably the only person here or one of
the few people here who remembered me as
the pupil he's always been a very easy
person to know those sociable person an
easy person to get on with who yours got
on well together which still worries me
slightly is that when I was a schoolboy
and I went to the Tizard lectures there
were famous scientists giving these
lectures in dark suits and I didn't
really understand why I was there and
there's just a hope that perhaps the
present students will feel differently
[Music]
[Applause]