David Mildner obituary

My friend David Mildner, who has died aged 76, was a leading figure in atomic research, hailed as neutron scattering's first rock star" at the Center for Neutron Research of the US National Institute of Standards and Technology in Maryland.

The second of the seven children of Raymond Mildner, an electrical engineer then serving as a Flight Lieutenant in the wartime RAF, and his wife, Betty Haslam Smith, David was born in Guildford, Surrey. He was brought up in Wimbledon and educated by the Jesuits at Donhead and then Wimbledon College, where he and I were classmates. David was a prominent member of Wimbledon College's Class of 55; he became (a very popular and effective) head boy in 1961, and won a scholarship to Worcester College, Oxford, to read physics, graduating well in 1966.