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Geoff Tootill Interviewed by Tom Lean: Full Transcript of the Interview

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Geoff Tootill Interviewed by Tom Lean: Full Transcript of the Interview IN PARTNERSHIP WITH NATIONAL LIFE STORIES AN ORAL HISTORY OF BRITISH SCIENCE Geoff Tootill Interviewed by Thomas Lean C1379/02 This transcript is copyright of the interviewee. Use of the recording or transcript in publication or broadcast is therefore 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 NW1 2DB 020 7412 7404 [email protected] IMPORTANT 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 ( [email protected] ) British Library National Life Stories Interview Summary Sheet Title Page Ref no: C1379/02 Collection title: An Oral History of British Science Interviewee’s surname: Tootill Title: Mr Interviewee’s forename: Geoff Sex: male Occupation: Electrical engineer, Date and place of birth: 4 March 1922, computer designer, Chadderton, scientific civil servant Lancashire Mother’s occupation: Teacher Father’s occupation: Journalist Dates of recording, Compact flash cards used, tracks (from – to): 3 Dec 2009 (track 1); 17 Dec 2009 (track 2); 8 Jan 2010 (tracks 3,4,5); 15 Jan 2010 (tracks 6-7); 26 Jan 2010 (track 8); 2 March 2010 (tracks 9-10); 9 April 2010 (tracks 11-12) Location of interview: Interviewee’s homes, Wokingham Name of interviewer: Thomas Lean Type of recorder: Marantz PMD661 on secure digital Recording format : WAV 24 bit 48 kHz Total no. of tracks 12 Mono or stereo: stereo Total Duration: 18:15:07 (HH:MM:SS) Additional material: Interviewer annotated picture of Manchester Computer; interviewee’s “Recollections of the 1940s” (1997/98); interviewee Christmas round robin with reference to Manchester computing; G. C. TOOTILL “The New Generation of European Data Networks” (1976) Copyright/Clearance: Interview Open. Copyright retained by interviewee for duration of lifetime and will subsequently be transferred to British Library Interviewer’s comments: Geoffrey Tootill Page 1 C1379/02 Track 1 [Track 1] Could you say a few words? Mary had a little lamb, she also had a bear. Although I’ve seen her little lamb, I’ve never seen her bare. That seems to be working fine. Good. Right. Shall we begin? This is an interview with Geoff Tootill on Thursday, December third 2009. So Geoff, shall we begin with just some sort of biographical details? What’s your date of birth and where were you born? Four, three, twenty-two, Chadderton, Oldham, Lancashire. What were you christened as? Geoffrey Colin Tootill – Geoffrey with a ‘g’, Colin with one ‘l’. And are there any sort of significance to your Christian names? I think my mother liked the names, that’s all. No, I don’t think there’s any other significance, no close relatives with these names. In fact probably at that time in my mother’s family, Geoffrey was a rather esoteric name, but that’s pure conjecture. What’s your earliest memory? Well, I remember that when I’m asked this question I say that I was climbing over the back of an armchair observed by my father and I suppose clearly I wasn’t heavy enough to overset this armchair because my father was quite relaxed about it. But that is what I Geoffrey Tootill Page 2 C1379/02 Track 1 remember as what I quote as my earliest memory. I can’t say that I actually remember that any more. Where would this have been? In your first home or…? Well, I suppose I was two or three or four years old and so this would have been in Birmingham and I can remember addresses where we lived in Birmingham, but I can’t say where we were living when I did this acrobatic trick. So that was, I think 65 Solihull Lane, that was the first address we had in Birmingham and then 493 Reddings Lane was – spelt like the nearby town here – and I went to school first from Reddings Lane I think and then my mother was fond of moving house, according to my mother, 16 Laburnum Road, Bournville, which was in Cadbury Brothers’ estate, they were probably the leaseholders, and then finally in Birmingham an address in… Pershore Road South and I can’t remember the number. And that was the family home that I left when I went to college and my parents moved from there to Manchester while I was attending college, because my father got promoted from Midlands representative of the Co-operative Press to editor of the Co-operative Press titles, there were four or five titles I think. The main one of course was The Co-operative News , which was a weekly newspaper, a broadsheet – well, yeah, a broadsheet – and that was issued to, I think, to local Co-operative Societies, I’m not sure whether they may have paid for it with no doubt a bulk payment arrangement and the local societies put their own enclosure in the middle of it, giving the local interesting information about Co-operative Societies, Co-operative Retail Societies. I can’t imagine that there was anything very interesting, but then there you are, some people will read anything. So that was his main publication and then I remember the name Our Circle , which I think was a little colour magazine for sub-teens I would say, in today’s jargon, and there was a magazine for women, married women, and I can’t remember the title. And that’s all I can remember about these publications. My father had various deputies as editors of these different publications and I have no idea what the sales were. They would be sold again by local retail Co-operative Societies. So what… we were on to places where I lived and as I say, my parents, I was the only child, my parents moved to Manchester while I was in the first year at Cambridge I think. [07:25] So I was at Christ’s College reading maths and for the first term at least, probably longer, I was in lodgings because it was reckoned to be a privilege to have rooms in college and there Geoffrey Tootill Page 3 C1379/02 Track 1 weren’t enough rooms for all the students. So I moved into college later. I was allowed two years by the Joint Recruiting Board, I think it was called. This was – oh, what’s the name – the ‘Two Cultures’ man? CP Snow? [08:13] That’s right, yes. He was head of this graduate recruiting organisation. There was a war on and eventually, well yes, as I say, it allowed me two years in which time I had to get what is normally a three-year degree. I had to miss out the, a remedial first year, the part one to the maths tripos. I went straight into the prelim to part two and I had to do that in two years. I also had various distractions, I mean apart from the usual distractions for a young man let loose on his own for the first time as a… and I suppose, let’s see, I must have been nineteen – eighteen or nineteen – and apart from the usual distractions, as I say, I was also in the Home Guard, or sorry, the Officers’ Training corps and the name was very rapidly changed, that was elitist of course, to the Senior Training Corps. [short pause – mic problems] [10:45] It’s quite strange sort of being on the receiving end of an interview isn’t it? Yes, well I’m quite used to shooting off my mouth, as I believe I was saying. Could I take you back to some of the things you’ve briefly sort of… Yes, go on. …mentioned along the way? You mentioned your father, he worked for the Co-op? [11:07] I think he was part of the Co-operative Wholesale Society. The CWS was the… the co- operative organisation – using co-operative with a small ‘c’ - of the local Co-operative Geoffrey Tootill Page 4 C1379/02 Track 1 Societies. It started off as a wholesale supplier to local societies, I think, and then it got all kinds of extra oddments, like for example the Co-operative Press and my father was, he trained himself as a journalist. When he got back home after the First World War he was in the Royal Engineers Band during the 14-18 war and he played the clarinet. He’d taught himself to play the clarinet and he taught himself journalism, including Pitman’s shorthand in evening classes. I’ve forgotten where he was working but this was in Failsworth. Failsworth is the extreme part of Manchester on the boundary of Hollinwood. Maybe a little further out than I’m used to. What was his name? Frederick. He only had one Christian name and that was Frederick with a ‘c-k’ at the end. Where was he born? Ah. I’m afraid I’ve forgotten, but presumably in Failsworth because families didn’t move very much and in fact it would have to have been in that area to meet my mother who was born in Hollinwood. Oh right, okay. You mentioned your father had been in the First World War, the marines rather, in the First World War. [13:35] No, the Engineers, the First World War and in fact he was obviously put into the RE Band when he first joined up and later when the war became serious, the band’s instruments were packed up and shipped back home and he became an ordinary Royal Engineer’s soldier.
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