NATIONAL LIFE STORIES AN ORAL HISTORY OF BRITISH SCIENCE James Lovelock Interviewed by Paul Merchant C1379/15 © James Lovelock & The British Library Board http://sounds.bl.uk This interview and transcript is accessible via http://sounds.bl.uk . This transcript is copyright of the interviewee and The British Library Board . Use of the recording or transcript in publication or broadcast is only permitted with agreement of the interviewee. Please refer to the Oral History curators at the British Library for further information about the interview and the clearance process. Oral History The British Library 96 Euston Road London NW1 2DB United Kingdom +44 (0)20 7412 7404 [email protected] Every effort is made to ensure the accuracy of this transcript, however no transcript is an exact translation of the spoken word, and this document is intended to be a guide to the original recording, not replace it. Should you find any errors please inform the Oral History curators. © James Lovelock & The British Library Board http://sounds.bl.uk The British Library National Life Stories Interview Summary Sheet Title Page Ref no: C1379/15 Collection title: An Oral History of British Science Interviewee’s surname: Lovelock Title: Dr Interviewee’s forename: James Sex: M Occupation: Independent scientist Date and place of 26/07/1919; Letchworth birth: Garden City, Hertfordshire Mother’s occupation: Art dealer Father’s occupation: Art dealer Dates of recording, Compact flash cards used, tracks (from – to): 7/4/10 (track 1-5); 8/4/10 (track 6- 13) Location of interview: Interviewee’s home, Coombe Mill, Launceston, Cornwall Name of interviewer: Dr Paul Merchant Type of recorder: Marantz PMD661 Recording format : WAV 24 bit 48kHz Total no. of tracks: 13 Mono or stereo: Stereo Total Duration: 09:10:50 Additional material: Copyright/Clearance: Open. Recording copyright retained by James Lovelock. Interviewer’s comments: © James Lovelock & The British Library Board http://sounds.bl.uk James Lovelock Page 1 C1379/15 Track 1 [Track 1] Right. I was born at Letchworth Garden City in Hertfordshire on July the 26 th 1919, in a house on a road called Icknield Way, the old, ancient trackway that goes right the way across Britain from the south-west to, Norfolk I think. And, the house was called Norton Croft, and it was opposite what was called Letchworth Common. It was kind of, halfway between a common and park. Could you remember that house in enough detail to imagine being at the front door, going into the house, and give me a kind of tour of the house, describing its rooms? I can, but it won’t be very complete. You see, I left that house when I was just turned five years old. So, it’s, it’s really going back. But I do remember a lot of things. The door was within a porch affair that was on the side of the house at the front, you came into a garden with hedging along it from Icknield Way and then up to the porch and entered the house there. And, I cannot remember whether that house went straight into what was the sitting room of the house or into a corridor that, with the door off. I just can’t remember that. Mm. But I can remember the sitting room quite well, and a number of incidents that occurred in it. And, that led on through, I think to what would have, in most houses I suppose have been a dining room. And I can’t remember that it was always used as a dining room, I don’t remember eating in it very much. But it was quite a pleasant room, and it faced out onto the side of the house. And then, beyond that there was a big kitchen with a, a black range that my grandmother was always swearing about because it had to be cleaned and blackleaded to make it shine and look, [laughs] proper. It was, she treated it as many middle-class women treat an Aga stove nowadays, as a kind of curse-cum-sort of advantage. [laughs] Mm. Yes. And, the rest? © James Lovelock & The British Library Board http://sounds.bl.uk James Lovelock Page 2 C1379/15 Track 1 That was the downstairs. And that led, the kitchen then led into, I rather think there was a scullery but I’m not absolutely sure on this point, and a porch onto a fairly sizable garden at the back that was mostly sown with vegetables of various sorts. One wouldn’t really think about it as a child. Mm. But there were quite a few flowers as, you know, planted flowers as well. And there was also a shed, where my Uncle Frank kept his bicycle, and, there was a bench in there with some tools that they, whatever they did. Again, it’s, you know, a long- distance memory, and I can picture it more than know what was going on in it, if you know what I mean. Yes. Yes. [03:21] Do you remember what at that age you saw as being modern in the house, what sorts of things did you think were particularly modern as objects? I don’t think that the term, word modern would ever have entered my mind as a child then. You, you accepted the world that you came into as new and complete. Mm. The first time I encountered anything that I would regard as modern was when my grandmother, as she often did, took us over to my, see my aunt Florrie, who had a house in Hitchin, which was about two or three miles from it. It was a bus journey, and we went from the middle of Letchworth to Hitchin, to my Aunt Florrie’s house. And Florrie had just had two remarkable things installed. Her husband owned a tailor’s shop in, in Hitchen, on the, in the market square. They must have been fairly prosperous. And, they had telephone and electric light installed, and that, that was really quite remarkable. © James Lovelock & The British Library Board http://sounds.bl.uk James Lovelock Page 3 C1379/15 Track 1 [04:26] Do you remember what in particular you, you felt about seeing the object of the phone? What interested you about it? Not so much the phone; it was the light that interested me, far more, and the ability to just go up and turn the switch and on it came. That kind of thing. What moves a child of four or five is very different I think from what moves one when you’re a lot older. Mm. But it was, there was a definite sense of wonder there, no question about it, this was remarkable. [04:57] In the autobiography I sensed that, you were looking back on your birth and the fact that you were in a way sort of handed over to your grandparents to be looked after, and your analysis of that seemed to be that of an adult looking back. And I wondered whether you can... How else could it have been? I wrote it when I was... [laughs] Yes of course. But I wonder whether you can take yourself back to your, your child self and remember how you felt about that, about being, spending most of your time with your grandparents and little time with your parents. It was just the same as the, your question, what did I think was modern? You, as a child I think, children, at least I did, accepted the world as I saw it around me, and on the whole I was very content with it. And I go back to that very first vivid memory I ever had of lying in a pram outside, and I couldn’t have been more than two years old, possibly less, and, suddenly becoming aware of the world. Mm. © James Lovelock & The British Library Board http://sounds.bl.uk James Lovelock Page 4 C1379/15 Track 1 The sun was shining, it was a, it, it must have been a nice day. And, although I couldn’t have formulated the words, there was a kind of, into my mind came the thought, ‘So this is it. This is the world.’ Mm. Mm. It didn’t last long, but there was just, it’s a most vivid memory, and one that, it kind of set the seal of a, [laughs] a fairly optimistic, happy person in a world that seemed to be all, all all right. So from then onwards the world of my grandmother’s house and, and everything, was the world. My mother was a rare, occasional visitor, who turned up once in a while, and really I didn’t remember at all. Mhm. OK. Not in a... I... When I say I didn’t... I remember the occasions of her coming, but I didn’t remember her as a person, in the way that I remembered my grandmother. I had bonded firmly with my grandmother, and, when she died I was quite distraught, even though I was about twenty, because it was the los of my mother as far as I was concerned. Mm, emotionally, yes, yes. And... Yes. [07:22] What then do you remember as a, I don’t know, as a kind of visual event of your mother visiting? Do you remember, you know, what she was wearing? Almost nothing. I don’t, don’t... This is it. I didn’t really see anyone apart from my grandmother, my grandfather, my Uncle Frank, that was the youngest child of my grandmother’s family, who was at that time living at home and travelling to work in London with my grandfather every day on the train that ran from Letchworth to King’s Cross station.