Don Thomas obituary

My father, Don Thomas, who has died aged 88, was inspired to take up an academic life as a biologist, by his childhood love of the rivers, mountains and wildlife of Ceredigion in Wales.

Son of Dewi Jones, a farmer and poet, and his wife, Kate, Don was born at Llangeitho, a village near the market town of Tregaron, and attended Tregaron grammar school. He was always very grateful for the way that the school helped him to expand his horizons academically. By 1954 he had been awarded a BSc in zoology and a PhD from the University of Wales at Aberystwyth, where he met his future wife, Joy Robinson. They married the following year.