Conception.- Design and Planning.- The Project Advances.- To Hawaii.- Making It Work.- Early Operations 1980-1981.- Consolidation 1982-1985.- IRCAM: The beginning of the Array Revolution.- Cooled grating Spectrographs.- Changes at the Top.- Upgrading the telescope for the 21st century.- Restructuring ( 1995).- ORAC It pipes, therefore it is. 1996-2000.- Michelle (95-2004).- Departures 2000-2002.- Flexible Scheduling and the OMP 2001-2003.- UIST 2000-2009.- The new era of Wide-field Astronomy at UKIRT.- Into A Third decade.- UKIRT under threat.- Battle for Survival.- The Axe Falls.- Epilogue.