National Life Stories an Oral History of British Science

NATIONAL LIFE STORIES AN ORAL HISTORY OF BRITISH SCIENCE Eric Ash Interviewed by Thomas Lean C1379/92 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. The British Library National Life Stories Interview Summary Sheet Title Page Ref no: C1379/92 Collection title: An Oral History of British Science Interviewee’s surname: Ash Title: Interviewee’s forename: Eric Sex: Male Occupation: Electrical Engineer Date and place of birth: 1928, Berlin Mother’s occupation: Father’s occupation: Lawyer Dates of recording, Compact flash cards used, tracks (from – to): 24 January 2013, 29 January 2013, 11 March 2013, 25 April 2013, 21 May 2013, 30 May 2013 Location of interview: Name of interviewer: Dr Thomas Lean Type of recorder: Marantz PMD661 Recording format : WAV 24 bit 48kHz Total no. of tracks: 13 Total Duration: 11:20:48 Additional material: Copyright/Clearance: © British Library Board; no access restrictions Interviewer’s comments: Eric Ash Page 4 C1379/92/Track 1 [Track 1] Your programme is about made in Britain. I wasn’t. Did you have that sort of information about me by now? Yup. Yah, OK, so I don’t have to tell you all that. Ah, well, no. I mean you always have to assume that all that information may not exist in 1,000 years’ time. OK. Fine. No, sure. So, where were you born, and when? I was born in Berlin, in 1928, and lived in Berlin up to the age of ten. My father was a lawyer, he worked for the AEG, a big electrical company in Germany. And, he always maintained that his colleagues very nearly killed him, because they kept on saying, ‘Don’t worry about this chap Hitler, nothing will ever come of it.’ We’re Jewish. In the end he decided maybe it wasn’t entirely safe, and so in 1938 we emigrated to London. [01:05] Mm. What sort of a chap was your father, can you describe him to me? What sort of a chap? Oh I think he was, he had a great sense of humour. I think he was pretty bright. He was a lawyer but he also took some interest in the sort of things that his company did, which was an electrical company, and some of that may have rubbed off on me. But, emigration was not easy for him. Lawyers can’t very easily transfer their skills to another language. And so he found that but, that second half of his life quite difficult. Mm. Did you see much of his work for AEG when you were growing up? Eric Ash Page 5 C1379/92/Track 1 Oh no. No, not at all. No, I was only ten. I was desperately impressed by the fact that there was a chauffeur that collected him every morning, and that was a big change in his life too, by the time we came to London where we were, near subsistence level in, well not, not desperately poor but I mean certainly, no chauffeurs around the place. Mm. How high up was he in AEG, do you know? He was the head of the legal department. I don’t know whether there’s a term for that, but, mm. Mm. What sort of things interested him? Well I tried to find that out, but, it was what would call commercial law, law of contracts and that sort of thing, rather than being directly concerned with, with the technical aspects of, of the, of the industry. Mm. What sort of personality did he have? Well I quite liked the bloke, which is not inevitable with one’s parents as you know. And he was, he was very open and he was interested in, well he liked swimming, he liked playing tennis and that sort of thing. He struggled with the language side. I mean he was fluent in English but, well I’d say semi-fluent. He certainly didn’t have a, he certainly had a problem with, with the accent. But you know, he, his English was good enough that he could go to the theatre and enjoy it. Mm. Do you know how he met your mother? Well, they were both in Berlin. I don’t think, I don’t think I, I know of any, the particular way they encountered each other, but I think they were within the Jewish milieu there, where it was sort of natural for people to meet. He was considerably older than my mother, by about fourteen years I think. He had been in World War I, Eric Ash Page 6 C1379/92/Track 1 earned the Iron Cross, and, got the Defence Medal in World War II in London, which I thought was a nice combination. What sort of background did he actually come from? Well his father was a lawyer too. So I think, I think they were established in what was then Germany, Posen, which subsequently became Poland. [pause] And sadly I don’t know too much about his background. I, I do remember him telling me that, in 19... New Year’s Eve in 1900, he was walking along a river path wondering whether maybe in a century’s time a son of his would greet the next millennium. So I did. And just in case I didn’t make it, I informed my children that they would have to do it. [05:40] What was he like as a father, do you remember? I... He was, he was fairly liberal I would say in, in his perceptions. Of course my main experience of him as a father was after emigration to London, and shortly after that the war started, and so, what one could do and what one couldn’t do was rather circumscribed by the fact that there was a war on. Do you think he was any particular influence on you, in ways you could point out? Well, I think he encouraged me in thinking about engineering as a career. He certainly thought it was a bad idea to get involved in law, because he thinks one ought to be flexible and able to move from one country to another, which as an engineer or as a scientist you could do rather easily, but not as a lawyer. [06:40] And I used to construct things with Meccano. Does Meccano mean anything to you? Well it does, but let’s assume it doesn’t. [laughs] What is Meccano? Meccano was, was a construction set which involved strips of metal with lots of holes in them and nuts and bolts to put it all together. And it was a rather, un-prescribed way of constructing things. You could construct things according to what you saw on Eric Ash Page 7 C1379/92/Track 1 the catalogue, but there was also freedom to construct things as you imagine them. And I know quite a lot of people who found that quite inspirational in their use, and who regret that it hasn’t really been maintained as much as one would have hoped in the present time. Things like Lego, which is plastic bricks, take the place of it to some extent, but it is, a little less demanding on children when they want to build something. What sort of things did you use to build? Oh, I was, I, I would build things like cranes or, or locomotives, that sort of thing. And I also got involved in, in doing things electrical, somehow or other, I think I got a, some kind of an electrical set where I could actually do some things. And then I always remember going to the library and getting, and I would have been I suppose about eleven, getting a book out with the title, Electricity For Boys , which really grates these days, and in fact, a considerable amount of effort on my part in later life has been to persuade women that engineering is a very good profession for them. But anyway, this book, Electricity For Boys , was actually a rather good book, and, and enabled one to do thing like make little motors and that sort of thing. Make little motors from what? I’m afraid I’m part of the Lego generation, the idea of making... Oh well you would have magnets and you would have wire and coils, and, you would, the coils could rotate on an axel. I can’t remember the details of the, of the thing. But it’s, you can make an electric motor with very simple bits and pieces. I’ve always wondered, when you were making things like electric motors or Meccano things, are you following plans, or are you just, doing it yourself? Well, some of each. Well as I say, the Meccano things, there were plans that you could follow, but you could also be let loose on it and, and do your own thing. On the electric motors, knowing, you sure had to know roughly what you were doing, but even so, there was scope for trying things out and see whether they worked.

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