Rhea Martin was a formidable operator. I worked for the University of Hertfordshire as Rhea's career was coming to its close and recall her, by then retired and a visiting professor, as a very effective chair of the university's ethics committee, trying to instil some discipline into academic staff who undertook research activities with human subjects.
A few years earlier I had my only run-in with her. Two of my colleagues insisted on conversing at the tops of their voices over quite a long distance across an open-plan area. Rhea came calling. She could hear every word of every conversation from her office at the far end of the building. She knew we were thinking of reorganising our space. Please could we move this pair into positions where they were not in a line of sight with each other? It was a request I could not refuse.
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