In 1981-2 the Department at Sussex was the victim of severe cutbacks in the university sector, and the Materials Science Department, with an excellent research reputation but with a small number of undergraduates (due to the unconventional nature of the subject), was earmarked for closure. Cahn took early retirement and went for two stressful years to the University of Paris, Orsay returning to retirement in Cambridge in 1983. It was in that same year that he was awarded the A. A. Griffith Medal and Prize. He remained there until his death in 2007, from 1986 as an Honorary Research Fellow in Cambridge's Department of Metallurgy and Materials Science [http://www.msm.cam.ac.uk. Apart from one year spent in the US in 1985–6, Cahn's main output in these final years was his editing work.