My part in the rise of the UK Nuclear Structure Facility (1975–1982)

Abstract A chronical is given of my involvement in the realisation of the UK Nuclear Structure Facility (NSF) at the Daresbury Laboratory (DL) in Cheshire, England. The huge successes in design, glitches and personal interactions are described. It was with ion beams from the NSF accelerator that superdeformed rotational structures in the atomic nuclei 132 Ce and 152 Dy were discovered. The discovery changed the direction of nuclear structure physics and experimental techniques.