National Life Stories an Oral History of British Science
Total Page：16
File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb
IN PARTNERSHIP WITH NATIONAL LIFE STORIES AN ORAL HISTORY OF BRITISH SCIENCE Peter Head Interviewed by Dr Thomas Lean C1379/79 IMPORTANT This interview and transcript is accessible via http://sounds.bl.uk . © The British Library Board. Please refer to the Oral History curators at the British Library prior to any publication or broadcast from this document. 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. British Library Sound Archive National Life Stories Interview Summary Sheet Title Page Ref no: C1379/79 Collection title: An Oral History of British Science Interviewee’s surname: Head Title: Interviewee’s Peter Sex: Male forename: Occupation: Civil engineer Date and place of birth: Birmingham 27 February 1947 Mother’s occupation: Father’s occupation: Civil servant Dates of recording, Compact flash cards used, tracks (from – to): 21 June (1-3), 10 September (4-6), 12 October (7-8), 14 December 2013 (9-12), 3 January 2013 (13-14). Location of interview: British Library Name of interviewer: Thomas Lean Type of recorder: Marantz PMD661 on secure digital Recording format : WAV 24 bit 48 kHz Total no. of tracks 14 Mono or stereo Stereo Total Duration: 12:41:08 (HH:MM:SS) Additional material: Copyright/Clearance: Interview open, copyright to British Library Interviewer’s comments: Peter Head Page 4 C1379-79 Track 1 Track 1 Peter, I was wondering if you could introduce yourself, please. Yes, my name is Peter Head and I was trained as a civil engineer in the UK. When were you born? I was born on 27 th February 1947 and actually I was born in Birmingham but moved to London at the age of two, so mostly brought up around London. Who were your parents? My parents were called Vera and Robert and my father was a – a clerk really, in the civil service, in the post office. He used to look after the buildings for post offices. And my mother spent most of her life being a housewife. She was born in Coventry. And I think they met and got married before the war. He spent time in Africa during the war and so they then had their children sort of at the end of the war. So I had a sister, who was a year older than me, and I was obviously born just after the war. So did you grow up in London? Yes, pretty much. I mean, from the age of two, I have a – I have the odd memory of Birmingham but really most of my memories start in – in South London, actually. We moved to Worcester Park in Surrey and – where we lived in Evesham Road, I can still remember the house. And was brought up there, went to primary school there, and then we sort of moved around that area. We lived in Stoneleigh, we lived in Ewell and I went to school in Kingston, so very much brought up in that part of South London. Why the reason for the move? 4 Peter Head Page 5 C1379-79 Track 1 It was really my father’s job and I suppose it was gently increasing the size of the house, ‘cause I think the first house we lived in wasn’t quite big enough for a growing family and so the second house that we moved to in Stoneleigh had an extra room over the garage, so it was a slightly bigger semi detached suburban house. And then – my father eventually then moved up to Leeds actually and then back to Ewell again and that was because of his job, but – but that was much later. So most of my time, up until I left school, was actually in – in Stoneleigh in Surrey. [02:45] You mention your father, could you tell me a bit more about him. What was his name? Yes, his name was Robert Cyril Head and he was, erm, a very sort of focused civil servant, really, I would say. Not a very easy person to communicate with in many ways. So I had a nice relationship with my father but he was very – a very sort of closed up sort of person, so didn’t have much conversation. My parents were very – very focused on my sister actually and her life and career rather than me, so I just sort of got on with my – my life in the background, really, in the family. Unfortunately my father died when I was about twenty-five, so – so I sort of – and I’d been away at university as well, so – and at school, so actually I don’t really feel as if I ever knew my father that well, which is a shame, really. What do you think your strongest memories are of him from childhood? Well, I guess it’s probably holidays. I’m sure your life, when you’re young, is defined by holidays rather than other things, with your family anyway. And like a lot of people at that time, we used to go to caravan holidays in Cornwall. So we had these wonderful experiences, travelling down there on the train. We never had a car all through my life, through school, we never had a car, so it was all about travelling on trains and public transport. So we used to pack a trunk with all of our holiday stuff in that was taken by British Road Services to be delivered to the caravan and we went on the train. And I still have these wonderful memories of travelling on steam trains 5 Peter Head Page 6 C1379-79 Track 1 down to Cornwall and sitting in the restaurant car, eating soup, on the Cornish Riviera Express and things like that. And we would arrive in places like Wadebridge, Padstow, and have holidays at Polzeath and Treyarnon Bay and all those places in North Cornwall. And so, yeah, memories there of flying kites with my father and building sandcastles and sort of damming up water and those sort of things that suggested I was quite interested in – in engineering and structures and things like that. What sort of hobbies did your father have? My father was a sort of – the thing he did a lot of was sort of looking after the house and, you know, painting rooms and decorating and things like that. So he was mostly a person looking after the house and the garden. So my parents were – were very, very enthusiastic gardeners, both of them, and they spent a lot of time in the garden, a lot of time redecorating the house and making it nice for everybody. And that was really it. He didn’t have any other passions outside that. It was mostly focused on that, really. Did he ever talk about his wartime years? No, he never did, which, you know, looking back at it now, it’s a great shame. I’ve got photographs of him in Ghana and, you know, with the local football team in Africa and so on, but he never talked about his experiences in the war, as of course a lot of people didn’t, ‘cause I think it – probably there were fairly traumatic parts of it and I guess people just didn’t want to talk about it at that time. So – so he didn’t really, no. Do you know how he met your mother? I think they met through sort of social – social gatherings in and around Coventry, which is where he went to school, and quite what took my mother to Coventry, I’m not sure. I think – I think her parents ran a sweetshop in Coventry and I think they somehow met socially. I know they used to play tennis together at a tennis club, so maybe they met there. And – and this was before the war, of course. So they actually 6 Peter Head Page 7 C1379-79 Track 1 got married there and – and then the war came, so he then disappeared off to the war, I guess. So I’ve got photographs of them playing tennis and, you know, being – getting to know each other in that part of the world. [07:15] Could you describe your mother to me? Yes. My mother – she actually lived till she was ninety-five, so she’s – she’s only just recently died. A person who was a very kind and very concerned and – looking after everyone who came into her sphere of life. So she was someone, I think, highly respected and regarded by everyone she ever came to meet because she was so concerned about everyone else rather than herself. So she was an amazing person in that sense. She was very beautiful when she was younger. You know, she had a great sort of physical beauty about her, which everyone remarked upon. And she went through her life focused very much on her family and when her family left home she focused on the community and her friends. And she was a great networker with the family. She kept all the family in touch with each other and sort of generally looked after us all in that way. And she went on later in life – she did a lot of charity work.