We just drifted apart

Britain's most high-profile woman scientist, Susan Greenfield, has spoken for the first time about the collapse of her 12-year marriage.

The 51-year-old Oxford academic and presenter of TV series Brain Story said she and her husband, bestselling chemist Professor Peter Atkins, "drifted apart" and nobody else was involved.

Together they formed the most glamorous couple in the science world, featuring in Hello! magazine and spending weekends at Chequers with the Prime Minister and Cherie Blair, who they counted as friends.

But Baroness Greenfield, the first woman director of the Royal Institution, Britain's oldest scientific learned society, said she decided to end the marriage because the chemistry between them had gone.

Staff at the Royal Institution's Mayfair headquarters, where the couple have a flat, became aware of problems two weeks ago when Professor Atkins's belongings were piled up in the lobby.

Baroness Greenfield said: "What I hope this shows is that those of us who live in the world of science have the same problems as everyone else. That we are just as fragile and human and vulnerable."

Speaking from Washington, where she was collecting an award from the American Academy of Achievement, Baroness Greenfield added: "We are just two middle-aged people who drifted apart.

"I don't want to get into the personal details of what happened. There were a lot of complex factors leading up to it."

Baroness Greenfield, who is reported to have thrown her husband's belongings out of their Oxford house, said she had needed more space.

"They were outside briefly. But I can see how that might look to a third party," she said.

"My husband is a good man and while we haven't exactly had a lot to say to each other recently, I hope we will always be friends."

Professor Atkins, Oxford Professor of Chemistry and millionaire author of the world's best-selling chemistry textbook, said his wife's decision to end the marriage "was a complete surprise. One day she turned to me and said, 'This marriage isn't working.'"

He added: "She is not a lady to accommodate discussion. I was declared redundant, and that was it. Of course, I had always known she was a tough cookie. You do not get to where she is without being very tough."

The Baroness laughed off her husband's description of her, saying: "That isn't quite right, but I don't want to go into that."

The couple are at least in agreement about one thing: Professor Atkins's daughter by his first marriage who he says is helping him through the breakup. "His daughter has been very, very good," Baroness Greenfield agreed. "She has been very sympathetic to both of us.''