Letter: Richard Leakey obituary

Through my father, Kenneth Oakley, a palaeontologist most famous for helping expose the Piltdown skull hoax, I met all manner of distinguished scientists and other significant figures, but none made as much impression as Richard Leakey, and that was when he was just a kid.

Leakey's parents, Louis and Mary, had been invited to lunch at our home in Amersham, Buckinghamshire, and a somewhat resistant Richard had been brought along in tow. A couple of years older than me, he ignored me completely, but I could see even then that he had charisma and would go far.