My PhD was on the sulphur isotope geochemistry of meteorites and was supervised by Colin Pillinger. My PhD studies taught me a lot about mass spectrometry, vacuum systems, glassblowing, programming, and analysing samples. This was a useful research apprenticeship for my first postdoctoral position with Grenville Turner at the University of Sheffield, which involved using the MS1 mass spectrometer and applying the Ar-Ar technique to mineral inclusions in diamonds to obtain genesis ages and to study the composition of fluids also trapped in diamonds. I then moved to SUERC, Glasgow for a few years, and worked with Ian Parsons and Simon Kelley on the tricky problem of Ar diffusion in feldspars. Around this time I became interested in extending the 40Ar-39Ar technique to measure low concentrations of halogens in fluid inclusions and moved to Manchester, initally as a Royal Society University Research Fellow to continue this work.