When I arrived at MIT in 1981, Bill Brace told me to get two books, Jaeger & Cook and Mervyn’s small brittle field monograph. They have been with me ever since. It took quite a few years before I met the great man at the AGU in San Francisco and then another time in Cambridge, Mass. He had just flown from Canberra but looked as lively and cheerful as if he had just crossed the street instead of circling around half of the Earth. The huge impact of Mervyn’s work will stay with us forever. All my thoughts go to Mervyn’s family and his friends. Yves