This is a story about Stan Openshaw and me (Andy Turner). Stan was one of my greatest teachers and that is saying something, for I was lucky to have several. We first met in Leeds when I was an undergraduate student studying Mathematics and Geography. He supervised my dissertation when I was a masters student studying Geographical Information Systems. Following this I joined Stand research team in the Centre for Computational Geography where I still work at the University of Leeds. Stan and I worked hard together and became friends. Sadly, Stan had a massive and severely disabling stroke in 1999 and was retired. With another friend, Becky Alexis-Martin, I am now helping to develop a Biography of and for Stan. We hope to use Yarn to collect together a series of interconnecting stories about Stan and others, be they individuals or groups. I hope this story will generate some useful building blocks for others which can be used to link and connect a wonderful collection of stories about Stan and his influence in and beyond academia.