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1965 Diary & Notes

On 14th January I attended a meeting of the Editorial Board of the Journal of Scientific Instruments at 1 Lowther Gardens. Other members of the Board were Dr. A.J. Maddock (Chairman), Dr. D.G. Avery, Dr. J. Dyson, Dr. K.M. Greenland, Mr. T. Mulvey and Dr. L.A. Sayce.  65a00 .

My involvement with the Institute of Physics continued at a moderate level, mainly by attending JSI Editorial Board meetings. At one in March there was some consideration of the policy for the Journal as well as the usual decisions on papers and arranging for books to be reviewed. Dr. A.J. Maddock was in the Chair and other members present were Professor A.R. Boothroyd, Dr. S. Bradbury and Dr. K.M. Greenland.  65c30 . I agreed to write a paper for a Special Exhibition issue of JSI and arrange another two. One policy decision made there and then was that papers on modifications to commercial instruments could be acceptable. A paper from Parkin, an M.I. employee, was refereed.  65g01 .

Meanwhile my paper on Transducers & Electronic Devices had been published in the July issue of J.Sci.Inst.  65g00 . I was amazed to find references to it on the internet some 40 years later. 

At the July meeting we learned that the Chairman, Dr. A.J. Maddock, was being posted to Washington - he was thanked for his great service to the Board. Policy as well as Papers were considered. Unknown to me, a few days later, at a meeting of the Publications Committee of Institute of Physics, my name was put forward for Chairman of JSI Editorial Board.  65g06 .

On 26th July, Professor B.H. Flowers (later Lord Flowers) wrote inviting me to be Chairman of the JSI Editorial Board. Dr. D.J. Maddock, the outgoing Chairman, had said I had been great help and Professor Flowers said that he knew I would steer the JSI through its newly developing stages with great care and wisdom. 

On 10th August I wrote to Prof. Flowers accepting the JSI Board Chair and apologising for the delay while I consulted colleagues in the Company. By return I had a letter from Dr. A.C. Stickland, Deputy Secretary of IOP saying that she was delighted by my acceptance of the JSI Board chair and giving me dates of the meetings of the Publications Committee, of which I would automatically be a member.  65h08 .

I also wrote to Dr. A.J. Maddock thanking him for his nice remarks and asking him for a copy of his notes on Policy. Dr. Maddock of the Ministry of Aviation replied saying that he had been posted to Defence R&D at the U.K. Embassy in Washington, commented that the JSI was in good hands and enclosing his handwritten Policy notes.  65h20 .

Ten days after I accepted JSI Board Chairmanship, Dr. A.C. Stickland wrote asking me to complete an application form for membership of Institute as I could not really be Chairman unless I was a member - thus far I had served on the Board as one of the two co-opted non-members.  65h20 . I replied that I was greatly impressed by the Institute's recruiting techniques! I undertook to get my application in by 15th September.  65h31 .

In the afternoon of the 24th I chaired a JSI Board for the first time. I found it rather heavy going. However, I was impressed with the Secretariat's coordination of the Committee's business. New members of the Board were T.P. Flanagan & D.A. Patient. It was agreed that alternate meetings would be devoted to Policy issues (with only urgent Editorial matters being considered) and General, i.e. mostly Editorial, dealing with items such as the adjudication of papers.  65i24 .

I started the process of applying for Fellowship of the Institute of Physics.

In the afternoon of the 5th October I attended my first meeting of the IPPS Publications Committee. Dr. B.R Coles was in the Chair and other members included Dr. N.F. Astbury, Dr. D.G. Avery, Professor D.F. Brewer, Professor C. Domb, Professor F.C. Frank, Dr. J. Goodier, Dr. K.M. Greenland, Professor K.W. Keohane and Dr. E.G. Stanford.  65j05 .

I wrote to Dr. Lang, Secretary of IPPS, with application papers for Fellowship of the Institute of Physics.  65j11 .

The JSI Board Agenda was circulated on 22nd November, along with a Note from me. 

The meeting on 2nd December was the first devoted almost wholly to consideration of papers about Policy.  The Minutes set out clearly the decisions and recommendations. 

In the morning of 7th December I attended a meeting of the Institute of Physics Publications Committee.  Professor B.H. Flowers was in the Chair. Members present included Professors D.F. Brewer, C. Domb, F.C. Frank and K.W. Keohane along with Dr. B.R. Coles et al.  65l07 .   The Publications Committee approved the JSI Board recommendations. 

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Around this time Dr. Lang, Secretary of IPPS/IOP, died.  R.E. Burnett was angry when I told him.  Later he came and apologised saying that his anger was due to the fact that he greatly regretted missing paying his respects to a good friend.

From subsequent events and notably the comments of Dr. Stickland about finding papers about me in Dr. Lang's files, and remarks by Prof. B.H. Flowers, it could be that REB was arranging something with Lang behind the scenes.  However, Eric Eastwood later said he had put in a good word for me at the Institute of Physics.

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The Institute of Physics wrote on 7th December that I had that day been elected a Fellow.  65l07 .

The process of my getting to that grade was quite extraordinary. About 20 years before I had been a Graduate member of the Institute but when I applied for Associate Member grade I had been turned down so I let my membership lapse altogether. My contact with the Institute resumed with the Alleynes School Careers Convention in April 1964, then as a co-opted member of the JSI Board. Then in August 1965 I was informed that I must apply for membership to regularise my Chairmanship of the JSI Board! I therefore applied for Fellowship and was successful.

When I was invited to be Chairman of the JSI Board I had been told that I would also be a member of the Publications Committee. It was some time after I had accepted that I found that as JSI Board Chairman I was also an ex officio member of the Institute's Exhibition Committee. Then, when I saw the list of members I was quite taken aback to discover that Ray Burnett was on it. Not only that, I was a Fellow while he was at Member level.   65l00 .

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1965 Diary & Notes