John Milne: Father of Modern Seismology (1850-1913), a great communicator and polymath, returned to the Isle of Wight after nearly twenty years in Japan 1895 with his pioneering seismological knowledge and instruments. Settling in a small rural hamlet he established and ran an new observatory and laboratory with little outside support by mutually echanging his knoweldge and enthusiasm with those of interested locals whose specialist skills he required - they included a local builder, printer, mathematician, tradesman and linquist. They all stared with no seimological knowledge but John Milne waas so successful as a communicator that after his death these amateurs ran the observatory with little assistance for another six years.