My first educational memory is going with my mother to see the headmaster of Madras College to arrange to start school. We were told that there wasn't a place at the start of the session, and I'd have to start after the New Year. This was good news for me and, worried the headmaster might change his mind, I said "Lets go Mummy". I got my few months reprieve, then began my time at Madras Primary in the building to the right of the main South Street building. My years in primary education were in part spent at home since I had health problems which kept me off school for 18 months.

I joined the chess club in my first year and played with my classmates. I remember that a group of sixth form pupils came to watch us play and one lad said to his friends "You can't believe that these youngsters are playing the same game as us". One of my greatest joys was beating that sixth form lad in the chess competition a few weeks later. I reached the final, losing to Gavin Brown - later mathematician and vice-chancellor of the University of Sydney.

I was an undergraduate at the University of St Andrews, beginning my studies in 1961. Peter Fantham and David Borwein taught me in my first year. Lectures were in the Mathematics Classroom, one floor up at the east end of the quad. The organisation was somewhat less rigorous than today, with Peter Fantham making up the timetable on the back of his cigarette packet, usually (but not always) before lectures were due to start. We got tutorial group notices saying "Tutorial group $n$ will meet in week $m$ where $n + m = 3 \mod 4$." In addition to these two lecturers, I was taught pure mathematics by Willie Parnaby, Dorothy Foster, Jim Tatchell, Tom Blyth, and Edward Copson. I was taught applied mathematics by Dan Rutherford, Ron Mitchell, Jack Lambert and Alex Craik among others. I remember that a few weeks before my finals Copson came into the classroom looking very flustered. He explained that they had forgotten to give the differential geometry course. We got a few lectures so we might have a chance at answering the exam questions which had been set by colleagues in Dundee.

I went to see Copson to ask him for his advice about where I might apply to do research. "They're building a new university in my home town of Coventry", he said, "and I'm really excited about it. Why don't you apply." I did and Rolf Schwarzenberger invited me to visit the new University of Warwick. When I got there it was a building site, but the Mathematics Institute was well away from the rest of the University on the other side of Gibbet Hill Road.

I really enjoyed my three years at Warwick. Being a new university, none of the undergraduates knew anything about running societies so it was up to us postgraduates to set up societies. I became the first president of the chess club and also the first president of the astronomy society. We played chess in the Coventry league against car firms such as "Self changing gears", and the Coventry police. I visited the police station so often that I worried people might think I had a criminal record. Most evenings four of us research students would play bridge or Mah-jongg.

I was interviewed for a lectureship in St Andrews. At the interview Jim Tatchell said "You never took the course in Lebesgue Integration as an undergraduate. Have you corrected that deficiency now?" I had to admit that I hadn't - and I still haven't! I was appointed and went to see Copson to find out what I'd be teaching in my first year. "You did worst in Paper 1 (Calculus) in your finals," he said, "so you'd better teach that." I did - and enjoyed teaching it. I was lucky - if Jim Tatchell had been head I'd have had to teach Lebesgue integration. It was strange becoming a lecturer in the place I'd been an undergraduate. All my lecturers were now my colleagues. Going into the coffee room for the first time was quite difficult. I was so grateful to Newby Curle, the professor of applied mathematics, who understood it was hard for me and went out of his way to be welcoming.

This site is a rich and growing source of materials pertaining to the history of mathematics including biographies of mathematicians, mathematics in various cultures, time lines, famous curves (with Java interactivity), overview of math history, in-depth coverage of a large number of history topics, and more. Individual pages contain many cross-links and material is well written and useful for both casual and experienced users.

John J O'Connor and Edmund F Robertson of the School of Mathematics and Statistics at the University of St Andrews deserve the thanks of every teacher of mathematics who wishes to interest oneself or one's students in the history of mathematics.

Mention must be made of the outstanding Web resource on the history of mathematics, the MacTutor archive, created and maintained by two mathematicians, John J O'Connor and Edmund F Robertson, at the University of St Andrews. This currently includes 2,118 biographies and over 4,000 pictures of mathematicians. It records about 2 million file accesses each week, which reflects its use worldwide. Such a reach must have been unimaginable when MacTutor was first conceived. There is no doubt that much of the work now taking place in the history of mathematics would be impossible without this archive: the use of history of mathematics in education, at the school and the undergraduate level, is so greatly facilitated by MacTutor that I believe the growth in interest in history in mathematics education could not have occurred without the archive.

... mathematics is the passport to a larger, richer world. The archive of mathematical biographies can make this real for students who have not yet mastered their first deeper mathematics. If you are a teacher, the MacTutor archive is a wonderful resource for enriching a maths class, for final written projects, and to give students a sense of the reach and scope of mathematics. You can simply have the students browse the archives, or you can use it to create ten-minute segments for class about interesting people.