I would have met Caroline in the first days of her undergraduate degree at Warwick, back in the early 1980s. Outside classes, whenever I felt nostalgic about my research trips to Argentina - 'Mi Buenos Aires querido', as the tango puts it - I could seek her out to talk about shared landscapes and listen to her perfectly modulated Spanish. I remember her putting me in touch with her brother-in-law, Juan, who built the shelves and cabinets for the study in my newly acquired Victorian house. She would sit in the corner of the study, helping quietly to oversee the installation, and picking books out of large removal boxes. She was an integral part of our intellectual and social community at Warwick for more than a decade. Many years later I had the good fortune to act as an external examiner for undergraduate and MA courses in Latin American Studies at Bristol. There I could see the care and attention that Caroline gave to all her students, the range of her research and teaching interests, and also the close relationship that she had with friends and colleagues. Caroline and Richard were always great hosts and I remember squeezing into Sally-Ann's car on several occasions to be shown the sights of Bristol and the surrounding countryside before members of the department took me for dinner at one of their favourite haunts. Never has examining been such a pleasure. And I also witnessed a remarkable act of solidarity by Caroline and several of her colleagues to avert a threatened redundancy within the department. Looking around my study this morning, in a vain search for early photos, I came across a recording of a concert in Buenos Aires in 1984 - Caroline's early years at Warwick - to mark the return of democracy in Argentina. I played one of the tracks, Mercedes Sosa's interpretation of Violeta Parra's song, 'Gracias a la vida', which became something of an anthem for hope and reconciliation. The lyrics, I feel, speak to Caroline own outlook on, and embrace of, life. Here is the final verse. Gracias a la vida que me ha dado tanto Me ha dado la risa y me ha dado el llanto Asi yo distingo dicha de quebranto Los dos materiales que forman mi canto Y el canto de ustedes que es mi mismo canto Y el canto de todos que es mi propio canto Gracias a la vida que me ha dado tanto Thank you Caroline. John