In a long life I have read the books and been taught the deeds and studied the scholarship and seen the art of the famous in many great countries of the world. The work of some of our own in this small corner where I have lived and which is blessed and which I love is as exceedingly good as the best I have seen or known about anywhere. Such men are geniuses on a par with any. Here are two my life has been enriched to know.

●  Denis Williams’s masterpiece was probably the work Prehistoric Guiana published in 2003. In that magisterial book we have the work of Denis Williams, archaeologist and anthropologist of worldwide stature. But Denis, astonishingly, was much more than that. He was certainly one of the most extraordinary men I have ever met in my life. In my day to day experience only Martin Carter matched him as a creative presence in the nation. When those two men died within a year of each other in 1997-98 you could almost feel the…..