Neil is an invaluable asset to his subject, Department and Faculty – and to the wider University, both as an educational organisation and as an academic community. He represents at once a moral and intellectual anchor and a force for dynamic progress. The quality, value and public profile of Neil’s research is self-evident. He is a prolifically productive professor whose outputs garner significant prestige and add substantially to the reputation of the University. He is engaged in research not only of exquisite scholarliness but also of great popular interest and cultural importance and impact. That much is obvious enough. Yet Neil’s contribution to the institution goes far beyond his own excellent research, his support of aspiring research and his commitment to the development of research-informed teaching. Neil’s contribution has, for example, been key to the (much-needed) development of an enhanced focus on professional employability in the curriculum for undergraduate provision in English Literature. Neil also continues to act as a mainstay in the management and ongoing development of Winchester University Press. As Chair of the University’s Programme Amendment Committee, Neil’s flexible, responsive, constructive and tireless approach to the implementation of strategically essential (and often urgent) changes plays a crucial role in the development and launch of such innovations as foundation year provision, as well as the introduction of institutional initiatives in such areas as assessment and values-based education – often at times of the year when others are sunning themselves on beaches far away! In this role – and throughout his work at the institution – Neil has demonstrated a profound and rigorous dedication to the enhancement, effectiveness and success of the University of Winchester’s provision and profile; a commitment which reaches above and beyond the scope of the prescribed duties and expectations of his position. Neither a clock-watcher nor a jobsworth, Neil is a valued and trusted colleague upon whose knowledge, authority, energy, good humour and sheer hard work we all rely, and whose contribution – though so ubiquitous – we should never take for granted.”