Ruth Mason
Article reproduced by permission from an original Facebook post
I was really appreciative of The Guardian’s recognition of the contribution my dad made in his life, in their Other Lives section on 15 March 2021, https://www.theguardian.com/science/2021/mar/15/don-mason-obituary.
As well as focusing on his career as an Immunologist, the article mentions his early years growing up in the Medway towns, where the Chatham docks and the aircraft factory his father worked in were key targets for WW2 bombing raids. It was always something he thought about in relation to his peace activism.
The obituary flags his contribution to the Upper Heyford peace protests and – importantly in these times where the right to protest is under threat – positions his resulting time in prison for civil disobedience as part of the contribution made in this struggle. Ironically, the charge was for ‘breaching the peace’, which Dad always found highly amusing.
I’ve always been proud of Dad’s work in immunology, knowing that his foundational work on T cells enabled immunotherapy approaches now widely used in the clinic. The Medical Research Council have more details on this in their ‘Insight blog’ (https://mrc.ukri.org/news/blog/behind-the-picture-don-mason-and-his-t-cell-legacy), and flagged in their tweet how the painstaking accumulation of knowledge through research in this area over many years underpins the response it has been possible to make today to COVID-19.
The Guardian article omitted a section from the original submission (contributed by colleagues) which also mentioned the nurturing research environment that Dad cultivated, where his approach of unshowy, collaborative rigour, empathy and kindness positively impacted both colleagues and students, and had a particularly positive impact on supporting the early careers of his female doctoral students and postdocs.
The thing that stands out most for me from my dad’s life, and which I find both deeply touching and inspiring, is how he reflected on the meaning of his life’s experiences and used those reflections to inform the action he chose to take, in light of the gifts and opportunities he possessed, with compassion as his touchstone. From experience of war to peace activism; from loss of a child from untreatable disease to immunology; from experience of incarceration to years of prison visiting, correspondence with death-row inmates, support of probationers and campaign against detention of immigrants.
It’s important to note that no life is free of conflicts or compromises: Dad always accepted that his role as a vivisectionist could be seen as a contradiction to his veganism – he didn’t shrink from this, but saw it as the balance of benefits and accepted others would take a different view. Implacable in his opposition to nuclear weapons (see postscript), he nonetheless struggled with pacifism, believing that he would be unable to resist violence in the face of a direct threat of violence to his family. What I know is that his perspective was always informed, to the utmost that he was able to bring to it, by his understanding and experience of love. As for us all – if we are lucky – his life was an unfolding into a deeper experience and knowledge of that. As for many others, my life will always be blessed by his legacy.
Postscript:
Dad’s opposition to weapons of mass destruction, and concepts of deterrence such as Mutually Assured Destruction, arose from his conviction of their utter incompatibility with the unity of all creation – the fundamental nature of the cosmos, he believed. He chose to close his book, ‘Science, Mystical Experience and Religious Belief’ with a poem of the Sufi mystics (below), expressing this underlying character of the Universe. It was his own personal sense of this, tempered through experiences of both joy and sorrow, which underpinned his profound reverence for life and humility of approach in carrying through life’s activities.
The Vision of God in Everything
In the market, in the cloister – only God I saw,
In the valley and on the mountain – only God I saw,
Him I have seen beside me oft in tribulation;
In favour and in fortune – only God I saw.
In prayer and fasting, in praise and contemplation,
In the religion of the Prophet – only God I saw.
Neither soul nor body, accident nor substance,
Qualities nor causes – only God I saw.
I op’ed mine eyes and by the light of His face around me
In all the eye discovered – only God I saw.
Like a candle I was melted with His fire;
Amidst the flames outflanking – only God I saw.
Myself with mine own eyes I saw most clearly,
But when I looked with God’s eyes – only God I saw.
I passed away into nothingness, I vanished,
And lo, I was the All-living – only God I saw.
Baba Kuhi of Shiraz
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Forty-Three e-Newsletter • Number 504 • April 2021
Oxford Friends Meeting
43 St Giles, Oxford OX1 3LW