John Dixon's book "Growth through English" (1967) is both an account of the four-week Anglo-American seminar on the teaching of English held in Dartmouth, New Hampshire, in 1966 and a seminal text in English studies. Fifty years later, its holding concept of "growth" remains significant to the identity of the profession (Goodwyn 2012). Over the last half century, Dixon's ideas have generated considerable debate. Early (1968) suggested that Dixon had merely "freshened familiar ideas" from 1930s progressive education, while Tarpey (2017) argued in the last issue of this journal that many readers had misinterpreted the radical import of Dixon's account. Brass (2016) offers a historically contextualised account both of the conference and of its global influence during the succeeding half-century. Dixon revised the book in 1975 under the subtitle "set in the perspective of the seventies" and offered in 2009 a reflection on the times in which it was written. In this conversation with John Hodgson, he speaks of the early influences that formed him as an English teacher and led him to Dartmouth. He also reflects on the ways in which his experience of collaborative teaching with Leslie Stratta and Simon Clements led to publication of the classroom texts "Reflections" and "Things Being Various", and the formative influence of this work on his account of the conference. He describes some of what was omitted (partly through modesty) from "Growth through English".