Letter: Sir Colin Blakemore obituary

A meeting with Colin Blakemore and Les Ward on the set of BBC One's Kilroy programme in 1991 led to us forming what eventually became the Boyd Group. At the time Les was director of Advocates for Animals, and I of the Research for Health Charities Group.

Then as now I opposed animal research in principle, but felt that patients' needs and medical advances must come first in a society that chooses to eat animals and uses them for work. Those involved with the issues - animal rights activists and animal welfare organisations, scientists, doctors and the pharmaceutical industry, and medical research charities and patients groups - usually met only in TV and radio bear pits where the objective was to win the polarised debate, not listen to the concerns of the other parties, and we wanted to encourage more effective exchanges.