We have learned with great sadness and affection than our previous Assistant Director, Ivan Brown, died on 4 November. During many years at the Unit (1953 to 1994), Ivan was a mainstay of our scientific staff, leading our long-running programmes of research into driver behaviour, safety and human error. His affability and sense of enterprise were unparalleled, whether persuading banks of Post Office telephone operators to be wired up at their switchboards, instrumenting Unit cars to measure the driving skills of people generating random letters, or hobnobbing with RAF officers to improve pilot selection. As he famously put it when winning the Ergonomics Society’s “complete the sentence” competition, “An old ergonomist never dies… they just get broken down by sex and age.” We extend our greatest sympathies to Ivan’s wife, Brenda, and all who remember him.