I was both in awe of, and petrified by, the prospect of meeting Professor Humphreys, as one of the two examiners of my PhD, back in January 1999. As I ventured into the emerging field of outdoor comfort, his seminal work at the BRE was a major source of inspiration and with my supervisors, we agreed that there could be no better examiner for the thesis than the father of adaptive thermal comfort theory.

After what felt like a never-ending viva, and once I had finally processed that it was over and I could breathe again, I came to appreciate not only a brilliant academic, but also a truly wonderful man.

Michael was fiercely intelligent — a low-profile trailblazer who was also generous, kind, with a sharp sense of humour and deeply supportive. Some of his suggestions and insights stayed with me throughout my career, and I was extremely fortunate to collaborate with him in later years. I will always treasure his messages and words of praise.

And let’s not forget that he introduced our scientific community to the use of probit analysis. I still remember his wonderfully simple example: a straight line answering the question, “Is the fly dead or not?”

His generosity — along with Mary’s, whom I sadly never had the pleasure of meeting — took me completely by surprise when my son was born in the early 2000s and they sent us a beautiful, handmade, quilted playmat. Nearly three years later, another arrived for my daughter. I was astonished to learn that even as late as 2018, Mary was still making playmats for their great-grandchildren.

Both playmats remain treasured possessions and constant reminders of their kindness, their legacy, and of a truly wonderful man and his beloved wife.