We enjoy sailing small boats, two of which I have designed and built myself.

In 1948 I was appointed to a Lectureship in Physics and in 1949 elected to a Fellowship at Trinity College.

I think that the event which, more than anything else, led me to the search for ways of making more powerful radio telescopes, was the recognition, in 1952, that the intense source in the constellation...

My father John A. Ryle was a doctor who, after the war, was appointed to the first Chair of Social Medicine at Oxford University.

During the war years I worked on the development of radar and other radio systems for the R.A.F. and, though gaining much in engineering experience and in understanding people, rapidly forgot most of the physics...

I was born on September 27, 1918, the second of five children.

I was educated at Bradfield College and Oxford, where I graduated in 1939.

In 1947 I married Rowena Palmer, and we have two daughters, Alison and Claire, and a son, John.

In 1959 the University recognized our work by appointing me to a new Chair of Radio Astronomy.