I have never visited Gough Island but in my imagination I feel that I have! As a brother-in-law to John Heaney (55/56 scientific expedition) I was lucky to meet all the young men who were part of that expedition. Their London "headquarter" was my mother's flat at 11 Queen's Gate Gardens and I watched and listened as their plans were made and(more often than not), realized. London in those days - emerging from the aftermath of the war - was grey and dreary. This expedition, like Edmund Hillary's conquest of Everest, captured and stimulated our imaginations and helped us reach for new value in our world.