Reflections and experiences with materials processing

I was invited by your Chairman to deliver a short lecture ''of a more general nature, reflecting on experiences in material:processing rather than concentrating on a specific research topic''. Implicitly this remit inclines me to be somewhat autobiographical and this route I have endeavoured to follow, see also ref. [1]. My catalogue of experiences you will see are not always quite what your might suppose. Taking a long view, they do not reflect the kind of ordered approach you would normally expect to encounter today. Fifty years ago the present, fast changing world was unforeseeable, but none-the-less a lot from then is worthy of the processing research record. My paper may provide interest for you (and lessons some of which can be left for you to draw) in different fragmented ways.