The contribution of Mervyn Paterson to science and in particular to the experimental rock deformation has been enormous, and his papers have contributed substantially to my own development. I must have read his 1980 paper on Carrara marble, with Stefan Schmid and Jim Boland, more often than any other paper. At the HPT-laboratory at Utrecht University, we had our own gas apparatus, that I usually referred to as a Non-Paterson-Rig. That definitely was meant to honour him in our own way, and I have good memories of the occasions we met and talked about his and our experimental work. I offer my deepest condolences to his family.