Prof. Peter Higgs enjoyed visiting Orkney, and took part in three science festivals over the years. He much appreciated the help of his close friend and colleague at Edinburgh, Dr Alan Walker, in helping with travel arrangements and much else, and Alan was there at many special occasions, including the announcement at CERN in Geneva that the evidence for the predicted Higgs boson had been found, and subsequently at the Nobel Prize presentation in Stockholm.

Alan, who has himself taken part in the festival on numerous occasions, tells us now of some of the stories of life on the road with the shy and modest physicist whose prediction of the mass-producing particle made him an international celebrity.

He speaks about Peter Higgs’s love of art and music, and of the outdoors.

In the Sunday evening concert in St Magnus Cathedral Alan will be introducing the premiere of a new work written in honour of Peter Higgs by George McPhee. ‘Hills Tell Old Stories’.

Cover image: © Ken Currie/courtesy Flowers Gallery, London and New York. Image credit: University of Edinburgh