IN PARTNERSHIP WITH NATIONAL LIFE STORIES AN ORAL HISTORY OF BRITISH SCIENCE Tony Brooker Interviewed by Thomas Lean C1379/09 This transcript is copyright of 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 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: C1379/09 Ref no: C1379/09 Collection title: An Oral History Of Collection title: An Oral History Of British Science British Science Interviewee’s surname: Brooker Interviewee’s surname: Brooker Interviewee’s forename: Ralph Anthony Interviewee’s forename: Ralph Anthony (Tony) (Tony) Occupation: Computer scientist Occupation: Computer scientist Mother’s occupation: Mother’s occupation: Dates of recording, Compact flash cards used, tracks (from – to): February 16 th 2010 (Tracks 1- 4), May 10 th 2010 (Tracks 5 – 8), June 10 th 2010 (Tracks 9 - 14) Location of interview: Interviewee's home, Thorpe-le-Soken – Tracks 1 – 4, 9 – 14. Interviewee's holiday home, Hexham – Tracks 5 – 8 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 Total no. of tracks 14 Total Duration: 11:19:14 Total Duration: 11:19:14 (HH:MM:SS) (HH:MM:SS) Additional material: Interviewee's hand drawn diagram of optical character recognition problem. 1955 academic paper - R.A. Brooker, “The Standard Account of the 'Simple Machine'” Photograph of Cambridge University Mathematics Laboratory staff c.1950. Previous interview conducted with Paul Thompson in 2009, plus interviewee summary with further details (BL Catalogue number: C1379/09A) Copyright/Clearance: Copyright assigned to British Library Interview Open Interviewer’s comments: Some TV background noise in tracks 10 and 12 Tony Brooker Page 1 C1379/09 Track 1 [Track 1] That seems fine. Yes, we seem to be recording. Right, so, this is an interview with Tony Brooker on February the 16 th 2010. So Tony, as I was saying, I’d like to start off with a bit of background detail. Where were you born? I was actually born in Fulham, in south-west London, just south of the River Thames. But... That was in, I was born in ’25. My parents moved to, across the river into Putney. I think they bought a house in 19... my father bought his house in 1929, and that was the only house I ever knew. Well it was in the family till it was sold in, oh I don’t know when. 1967. And my mother... My father died in ’65 and my mother in ’67. My father was a clerical officer, a senior clerical officer in the Civil Service. He was a guy who, one of a family of six, son of a, son of a painter, a chap called Harry Brooker, which incidentally, I’m not sure whether I ever mentioned this to Paul Thompson, there’s a site maintained by my son, Steven Brooker, called HarryBrooker.org, and that contains the family tree. [01:54] My father was a, I suppose someone in the art department would say it was a, a very minor Victorian artist, but he was a genre painter, you know, he painted pictures of family life. My grandfather was, lived to a good age. My grandfather was born in 19... 1848, the time of the revolution in, in Europe, 1848. And, I have a great respect for him. He brought up a family of six children in, originally Kensington, I think they moved out, Chelsea. No, probably Chelsea. They moved out, pushed further west, as London expanded, and he found himself in Fulham. [pause] They lived I suppose, I traced the house, probably not far away from the Queen’s Tennis Club or somewhere like that. I remember exploring the area with Vera, and, I was looking at the map, I wanted to cut through this place, and suddenly there was, great vans and BBC people saying, ‘Oi, you can’t go through there now.’ [laughs] And they were recording the Queen’s court, you know, the thing before Wimbledon. [03:20] Anyway, back to your question. [mic noises] Well, you, you’d better take up... I think I wandered off the point. Tony Brooker Page 2 C1379/09 Track 1 Your mic’s fallen off actually. [laughs] [03:33] I started school in, primary school in 1930. Mhm. I was abs... I had lived a very sheltered life. I was the youngest of, I was the youngest of four children, and I think, my parents had given... the first two were girls, then there was my brother, and finally me. And, I was very much subservient to everything they... You know, among the middle classes, and, well lower middle classes, the parents wanted the daughters, you know, to either be able to fend for themselves or, at least make a good marriage, so they, they, I think they concentrated on getting the, the girls through a decent... My eldest sister, I mean she graduated in about 1938 from, studied English at Holloway. A younger sister, Judy, she wasn’t quite as bright and she left probably school at, I don’t know, what, fourteen or fifteen, and, or sixteen. They went to, they were, they went to a paid for school, they could just about afford that. And she was encouraged to go into nursing, and she did, oh the classical, really grim treatment, the education that nurses at Guy’s Hospital in those days where, you know, you got up at five o’clock and the, the matron was god almighty and everything like that, yeah. It was a lived-in house, yeah. [05:23] My brother George, what I didn’t know at the time, I was far too young, he, four years older than me, I think my mother found it difficult, when I was born I think she found it difficult to cope with four kids, and, she asked my grand... her mother, my maternal grandmother that is, to bring up George by herself for about three, four years. Now, it wasn’t till very much later in life that my sister Judy, who is a very nice person, probably the most sensitive of all of us, said to me, she said, I can remember her saying, and this was probably only twenty years ago, well maybe fifteen years ago, she said, ‘It’s not surprising that George was difficult, because, he was sort of, shunted off to be looked after by Grandmother for about three or four years of his, the first three or four years of his life.’ Well from the age of, well, from the age of about, well four to, four to about eight or nine. I don’t know how long he was there. Tony Brooker Page 3 C1379/09 Track 1 Mm. When I say George was difficult, yeah, he was. I didn’t get on with him. [mic noises] Why? He recently... He died only last year actually at the age of eighty-seven, he lived to eighty-seven, but, oh, I think he had... I don’t think the last few years... in Australia. In fact he disappeared from the family. Ken... He left home in 1958, and wasn’t heard of again until my son, who lives in Sydney, Australia, traced him in about ’93 or ’94, somewhere west of, on a homestead west of Sydney. Yeah. Anyway, I’m wandering off the track. Just keep me, just keep me to the straight and narrow. [07:24] I was wondering, what sort of influence were your parents on you when you were growing up? Well my father, he was, he was a man who pulled himself up by his bootlaces, you know, self-educated, went to night school, all sorts of things. I’ve got some of his own... I’ve got some of his certificates somewhere he owned, and, he... You see, he come from a family of six. I mean, my grandfather painted a lot of pictures, but, he wasn’t a famous painter by any means. Although he had, he had links to other people in the, in his family, cousin I think or uncle, and lots of minor artists, and I expect... Even my, some of my grandfather’s paintings now fetch as much as twenty grand, they come up for auction. But nevertheless, I think, bringing up a family of six in, you know, a two up and two down place, is, a row of terrace houses... Mm. It’s not easy, and my father, he was about, I think, the third of six, third or fourth, I can’t remember without getting out the family history. Oh he educated himself at night school and things like that, and, worked his way up in the Civil Service and he came to the rank of senior clerical officer. He was... I’ve said all this in the other bit, Tony Brooker Page 4 C1379/09 Track 1 you know. He was earning £10 a week in 1939, which wasn’t a bad wage in those days. Mm. Mm. It’s not a bad wage in those days.