  Soon after his discovery of Précis de Logique Mathematique, Prior wrote to Bochenski in Fribourg and then, a little later, to Łukasiewicz in Dublin. He was excited to receive replies. ‘We are, all of us, very isolated, being few and scattered’, wrote Bochenski. ‘It is a real pleasure to hear that a Colleague so far away is interested in the same problems you are working at and that he finds one’s little writings may be of some use.’ Thus began Prior’s voluminous correspondence with logicians the world over. There were other ways, too, in which his isolation lessened. In 1951 he met and became friends with John Mackie and Jack Smart, at a conference in Sydney. This was Prior’s first experience of being among a large gathering of philosophers; Mary Prior described the conference as his ‘entry into a wider world’. In the same year George Hughes was appointed to the Victoria University of Wellington. Prior and Hughes had to make the most of their all-too-infrequent meetings, sometimes talking until the birds woke. Prior soon imparted his enthusiasm for logic to Hughes.