ABSTRACT Professor John S. Webb of the Department of Mining Geology at the Royal School of Mines, Imperial College, London, took his first PhD student (Tony Millman) to Africa in 1949 to try some of the just-emerging geochemical prospecting techniques. In 1955 I joined the newly-formed Geochemical Prospecting Research Centre in the Department as a PhD student. I too was despatched to Africa to do geochemical prospecting research in the Zambian Copperbelt. This paper is a much-abbreviated account of a detailed exploration geochemical drainage and soil investigation of the dispersion of Cu from the copper-cobalt ore bodies using the relatively primitive analytical techniques of the period. In addition to some science, an attempt is made to give a flavour of the time and place through anecdotes and a description of the way of life. The paper ends with a short account from a current PhD student at Adelaide University of some contemporary exploration geochemical work in Africa and northern Australia.