When the family moved to Aberdeen in 1968, the North Sea was less an oil province than a rumour with a drilling rig attached. We were making the textbook up as we went.

Cold water, hard lessons

Designing a waterflood for a reservoir nobody fully understood, with facilities that were still being welded, taught me to plan for the field you have rather than the one in the report.

It was the most uncertain and the most rewarding work of my career.