About Ru

Brought up in Yorkshire (England), but a resident of six other countries since then (Netherlands, Gabon, Norway, Oman, USA and Malaysia)..

That Yorkshire upbringing led to a strong interest in Viking culture and explorations.

Family connections resulted in a fascination with the mining history and mineralogy of Northern England (particularly the famous Westgarth Forsters, father and son) and the story of artists, travellers and writers, Jan and Cora Gordon.

Professional interests in the Earth Sciences centre on understanding and making quantitative models of the Earth's sedimentary systems, especially the submarine fans and related deposits of the deep seas. Amateur interests in the Earth Sciences include crystallography (especially twinning phenomena), and palaeontology (especially the history of life recorded in exceptionally preserved biotas).

I take particular pleasure in encountering wildlife in the wilds, but also in cities. Human cultures, especially in Central and South America, SubSaharan Africa and Arabia, have also been major fascinations.

I enjoy astronomy (Oman was a wonderful place for this) and meteorites (particularly those from the Moon and Mars).

And, to illustrate all of the above hobbies, I attempt, little by little, to improve my abilities to make decent pictures with a camera.



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Jan and Cora Gordon and the Balkan Hat: Getting Published in World War I

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In " The London Roundabout " (1933),  Jan Gordon describes how they came to publish their first book, " The Luck of Thirteen " (for an overview of this and their subsequent books visit Jan and Cora Gordon Books ). Following the "famous retreat" from Serbia, they wrote, "Having reached London in rags, and lacking visible means of support, we were trying to capitalize our experiences. The sale of some photographs temporarily banished the wolf, at least round the corner, but to continue the good work Jo had written an article called A Woman's Day at the Montenegrin Front ." "JO AT THE MACHINE GUN" A friend sent them to see Dan Rider, who recommended they send it to the Westminster Gazette - "They'll eat it." "Eat it they did, and spewed it out again as print. From this manuscript and a few others grew our first travel-book." On showing sketches of Serbia to Cecil Chesterton, editor of the New
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