Magnetic resonance in porous media: forty years on

A personal view of the field of magnetic resonance in porous media is presented in which an attempt is made to survey the current status and achievements, to highlight some of the contributions made by my group over the years and, at the end, to try and identify where further effort and growth points may be perceived. All this is done with the knowledge that the first and last sections are certain to be partial, incomplete and wrong, at least in part, and that the middle section describes work carried out by some of the many excellent students, post-doctoral researchers and other colleagues with whom it has been a pleasure to collaborate over a forty year research career.