With the curiosity of a twenty-year-old, I quietly entered the house. Scantily clad ladies, their cigarettes in holders, were sitting around in French poses. The Cricks clearly were entertaining and being entertained. Nosy parkers next door, dying to gate crash but fearing god and the church, had complained to the Cambridge police, and that was that.

I introduced myself to Francis Crick, hoping to quench both my thirst and my curiosity. Madame Crick was extremely generous. I got a strong Cyder — more than adequate at my tender age.

“I am doing Natural Sciences ,” I said, to which Crick responded without the slightest touch of vanity, “So am I.”

We became acquaintances, and this lasted off and on, in the course of which I remember Crick with his sparkling, if not dancing, eyes at the Eagle pub frequented by him and James Watson. They would declare there that they were about to find the “Origin of Life”. Then, we lost touch until a spectacular meeting of a British association, much later in the early Seventies at Euston Square, London, where both Crick and Watson showed up from America. My connection with DNA came alive again when I was a PhD student at King’s College, London. I came across Maurice Wilkin, who certainly was the king of Biophysics at King’s.

Rosalind Franklin, the photographer of DNA, has been dead for quite some time. Francis Crick is dead, having led a full life to the ripe old age of 88.

Crick at Cavendish was rather old for a PhD student, having served in the war. He was perpetually harangued by Lawrence Bragg, the legendary Cavendish Professor. Bragg disliked him intensely and probably did not trust him. Crick used to be an incessant talker, with a tendency towards solo dancing when excited, which he was most of the time.

Watson was the real spy. He used to sneak in at King’s, trying to lay his hands on the legendarily beautiful X-ray photographs of DNA taken by Rosalind Franklin. Maurice Wilkin could not stand Rosalind; the sentiment was reciprocated with as much vigour by Rosalind. I know all these stories not from any book, but because Alex Stokes, my senior colleague at King’s, used to take me into confidence thinking perhaps that I was no danger.

Alex, to set the records straight, suggested the idea of the double helix some years before 1953, when the DNA was discovered officially. In his extraordinary words, “I deserve 1/13 of a Nobel prize.”

Francis Crick was one of the quickest and brightest minds. He knew how to cut through the details and crack the problem with one bold stroke. Watson was outstandingly clever, maniacally ambitious. The dear boy, Maurice, was modest, evasive, but with an unparalleled instinct. The dark princess, Rosalind, the creator of it all, ended up dying of cancer, induced by X-rays.

In the long saga of the DNA, one of the greatest discoveries of the 20th century, all shall miss Francis Crick, his twinkling eyes and Yorkshire ruggedness. The dark princess is probably having her last laugh somewhere!