CAMBRIDGE TOWN
In September 1950, after 3 years as Assistant Physicist at British Oxygen Company, I left London to take up an appointment as Head of Physics Research of the Cambridge Instrument Company, Chesterton Road, Cambridge. My work was mainly on electronic measuring instruments for application in a wide variety of fields.
The medical electronics side of my work brought me into close contact with leading consultants and research workers in teaching hospitals up and down the Country. I was responsible for designing a variety of special instruments to measure the electrical signals from the heart, heart sounds, blood pressure at the tip of a catheter and the blueness of blood. Consultants and researchers were keen to broaden my experience - at Hammersmith Hospital, for example, I witnessed open heart surgery (a purse-stringing operation) on a man as old as 59!
I also became quite well known in the Instrument industry
-
a Cambridge Daily News report of a talk on Electronics and the
Human Heart I gave to Cambridge Men‛s Fireside (a local Methodist group)
led to an invited article which was published nationally by SIMA
(Scientific Instrument Manufacturers' Association). Actually the article should have been
re-titled Electronics and the Human & Equine Hearts for it featured a
Cambridge Instruments electrocardiograph, an instrument for which I was
responsible, which had been presented by the Municipality to H.M. The
Queen on 20th October 1955. The occasion was when she came to
Cambridge to mark the elevation of its status from Town to City and the
instrument was for use on her horses.
In contrast, my responsibility for the design of equipment for Royal Navy frigates and submarines led me into the secret world of Defence procurement for the Admiralty. The frigate instrument was for measuring the temperature of bearings when in spurt mode for chasing submarines. I was invited to attend sea trials of the equipment but sent an assistant, Les Sanderson, in my stead. The submarine project was a salinometer to determine seawater contamination in the vicious HTP (High Test Peroxide) fuel. I took part in tests of the equipment at an Admiralty Experimental Station at The Fryth, near Welwyn Garden City where pool of water was provided to dive into to quench the flames if there should be any spillage of the fuel onto clothing or any part of the body.
There is no mention of these instruments (nor of me) in Horace Darwin's Shop by MJG Cattermole & AF Wolfe, which is a history of the Cambridge Scientific Instrument Company from 1878 to 1968.
Chairman's son appointed Captain of HTP submarine
Self-Development - e.g. Clear Thinking & Public Speaking
Cambridge Instruments had close links with the University of Cambridge. It had started as a high-tech spin-off from the University and no doubt in recognition of its origin the Company from time to time held an Open House event for dons of the University and other guests, who were invited to roam freely round the Works and were given quite a good tea - hence the event came to be known as the Dons' Bun Fight. On these occasions I got to know people such as Sir Charles (Galton) Darwin (grandson of Charles Darwin and nephew of the founder of Cambridge Instruments), G.D.F. Searle whose elegant but obsolete goniometer experiment in the Cavendish practical class I had to scrap) and Robert Whipple (who sponsored me for corporate membership of the IEE but died before my application was considered so I had to get another sponsor - his will provided for the establishment of the Whipple Museum). Another such visitor in 1955, with whom I had a long conversation on medical electronics, was Percy Dunsheath, Chairman of University of London Convocation. In May 1956, he was the Guest of Honour at a Company dinner and soon afterwards became Chairman of the Cambridge Instruments.
I was concerned at the number of one-offs and different versions of instruments we were producing so for an Open Day in 1956 I created a display of the processes involved in taking a new instrument from the Research phase into Production. The Joint Managing Director responsible for Production was scathing about my display and thought I should spend my time designing rather than waste it on analyzing what we were doing. This was the start of my interest in design processes and years later I used in an altogether different context the material gathered for the display.
One new and increasingly important activity for me started because I was at Cambridge Instruments. In 1955 two fellow-managers John Hammond & John Davis, with the approval of senior wrangler Cecil Mason, a Director of the Company, proposed me for membership of Alma Mater, a Cambridge Lodge for Oxbridge M.A.s. The person who did a great deal of work in presenting me to the Lodge, coming to my home to brief me on what I was to learn, was Arthur Armitage, a Fellow of Queens College.
I was also active in the Anglican church and the ecumenical movement. As a
family we attended Holy Trinity Church in the centre of Cambridge. The Vicar
was Stanley Betts, greatly esteemed for his lively sermons as well as for
the excellent preachers and the high proportion of undergraduates he
attracted to Sunday Services. I was a member of his fascinating Men's Group,
I became a sidesman, then a member of the Parochial Church Council (PCC) and
Trustee of a Charity as well as a member of the Cambridge Christian Council.
One particularly memorable event was a debate in the Union chamber in which
the Churches endeavoured to come up with an agreed pronouncement on Suez. In
the end the Council in effect said "May God‛s will be done".
Meanwhile, back in North Kensington my dear father was presented to H.R.H. The
Duchess of Kent at the laying of the foundation stone of a new St. Helens
Church, to replace the one destroyed during the Blitz.
While I was at Cambridge Instruments there was another development which proved very important, namely my involvement in IEE (Institution of Electrical Engineers) committees. This began when Nat Hiller, a Technical College lecturer, invited me to serve on the IEE‛s East Anglian Committee of which he was Secretary.
FROM TOWN TO GOWN
My move from Town to Gown started in mid-September 1956 when I saw an advertisement, probably in the Daily Telegraph, for a post at the Cavendish Laboratory. I got my application in by the end of September and on a Saturday morning about a month later I attended for interview at the Cavendish. Mr. E.H.K. Dibden, the Secretary of the Cavendish, with a surprised expression on his face, murmured "We know you" as he conducted me to Professor Mott's office. I found the atmosphere remarkably friendly and I got the job. It was later that day that I realised that E.H.K. (Kenneth) Dibden was a member of Alma Mater Lodge.
Cambridge Instruments
asked me to state what I wanted to stay with them but I decided I would move
anyway. This was just as well because, before I had written accepting the
offer, my appointment was announced in The Times.
About 20 years later, a prospective employer told me that when he had enquired about my work at Cambridge Instruments he had been been informed that I had been a wireman (i.e. I worked on the production side, wiring up instruments) and that I had a drink problem. This false report may have been due to a mix-up in Personnel records but in view of the disinformation deliberately promulgated the thought must be entertained that the report was other than accidental.
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