NATIONAL LIFE STORIES AN ORAL HISTORY OF BRITISH SCIENCE Richard Brett-Knowles Interviewed by Thomas Lean C1379/66 © The British Library Board http://sounds.bl.uk 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. © The British Library Board http://sounds.bl.uk The British Library National Life Stories Interview Summary Sheet Title Page Ref no: C1379/66 Collection title: An Oral History of British Science Interviewee’s Brett-Knowles Title: Mr surname: Interviewee’s Richard Sex: Male forename: Occupation: Electronics engineer Date and place of birth: January 29th 1924, Manifold Wick, Essex Mother’s occupation: Nurse Father’s occupation: Produce surveyor, nutritionist Dates of recording, Compact flash cards used, tracks (from – to): 5 January 2012 (tracks 1-5), 6 January 2012 (tracks 6-9), 28 February 2012 (track 10-14) Location of interview: Interviewee's daughter's home, London Name of interviewer: Dr Thomas Lean Type of recorder: Marantz PMD661 on SD card with two lapel mics Recording format : WAV 24 bit 48 kHz Total no. of tracks 14 Mono or stereo: Stereo Total Duration: 10 hr. 4 min. 28 sec. Additional material: Photographs Copyright/Clearance: Interview open copyright to BL Interviewer’s comments: © The British Library Board http://sounds.bl.uk Richard Brett-Knowles Page 1 C1379/66 Track 1 Track 1 I’d like to start today by asking you to introduce yourself please. Well, I’m Mr Brett-Knowles but I was born Knowles and we changed it to Brett- Knowles for family reasons. And I think it might be better for you to call me Knowles because the people I’m going to talk about will know me as Knowles, wartime experience for example. What did you do? What did I do? Hmm. Well, in the war I was a civil servant in a reserved occupation in a nice safe part of Worcestershire. Actually I was at TRE, it’s the Telecommunications Research Establishment, so called because we didn’t do any telecommunications research at all; we were trying to kid the Germans that we didn’t – that we didn’t know about radar. The Germans thought we didn’t know about radar, and we thought they didn’t know about radar for totally different reasons, theirs was over crediting us with abilities we didn’t have. They sent a Zeppelin over in the August of 1939 to listen to our radar transmissions, they didn’t hear them. Why? Our radar was based on the empire transmissions of the BBC. The sun spot cycle was very favourable and they broadcast to our empire, which we used to have before we frittered it away, on twenty-odd megahertz. The transmissions were based on those transmitters used for the BBC. The receivers, brand new techniques, were not transmitting speech, transmitting pulses and we want to hear them. And it wasn’t exactly portable, it was fixed. The Germans, on the other hand, in 1938 their army was equipped with a portable radar. When were you born? © The British Library Board http://sounds.bl.uk Richard Brett-Knowles Page 2 C1379/66 Track 1 1924, 29 th of January, at my father’s farm. He wasn’t a farmer but he had it as a hobby as a bailiff. His line of business was food and nutrition, for which he got a CBE in the First World War. Where was the farm? In Essex, a place called – it was called Manifold Wick. A place you might know is Tiptree, it’s not very far from there, between Tiptree and Maldon. And that was my introduction. We left there when I was only five. [02:50] What did your father actually do? He had a firm of produce surveyors, so he surveyed the quality of food, which left me cold. He did not force me into his profession. He was a brilliant self engineer, he made my toys which were far better than anything you could buy. What was his name? Frank Knowles. And for my fourth birthday my maternal grandmother gave me a Meccano set. I wanted nothing more for my toys until I learned about radio. We’ll come back to Meccano in a moment but I was wondering if you could describe your father to me please. Could you say again? Could you describe your father to me please? Yes, a medium build, not tall like I am but something went wrong with his genes, I’m sure. He had a small moustache, he very rarely smoked, which was very common in those days. My mother, having been a nurse, smoked like a chimney, which so horrified me I have never smoked in my life and I don’t want to start now. © The British Library Board http://sounds.bl.uk Richard Brett-Knowles Page 3 C1379/66 Track 1 Could you describe your father’s personality to me? He was very helpful to people. Yes, he had a wicked sense of humour which I have inherited I’m afraid, practical jokes. You’ll learn a little more about that later on when you interview me about my time in Greenland. We’ll keep that for then. Could you give me an example of one of his practical jokes? Yes, the family came down to the farm for Christmas, I must have been about three or four at the time. He woke us all up at midnight, Father Christmas coming down the chimney. [both laugh] What sort of hobbies did he have? Making things. What sorts of things? Well, toys for me, what you call DIY today. We never had the man out, he always repaired things around the house, and if he needed some sort of tool for animals he would make it himself. Could you – are there any things he made that stick in your mind in particular? Well, only – yes, he made me a toy. We went to Belgium once for a holiday, he had to go on duty frequently, and we all went. He had made me a little pull along wooden boat. It was on the floor and a Belgian stole it from me but I caught him and I bit him on the knee, he gave me back the toy. So if you see an elderly Belgian with teeth marks on the knee, I did it. I couldn’t sit down for a little while afterwards. [laughs] You mentioned that your father was a produce surveyor, and what exactly does a produce surveyor do? © The British Library Board http://sounds.bl.uk Richard Brett-Knowles Page 4 C1379/66 Track 1 Oh, I’m selling you beef for example, and you want to know the quality of it and so do I. He would examine whatever it was, edible materials, and both analytically and with common sense looking at them, and would pronounce whether they were value or not, that was his job. And in the war, World War One, he did this for the army, he fed them, designed their rations. That’s what got him the CBE. Do you know what sort of background he came from? Yes, but he didn’t force me into it. I wouldn’t have been any good at it anyway. I inherited his ways of making things with his hands, he was extremely good at that. So what exactly did he win the CBE for? Feeding the troops in World War One, like Lord Woolton did in the Second World War, designed their ration packs. Designed in what sense? Oh, what was to go in them, the constituents to give them I suppose adequate calories. It’d be joules today wouldn’t it, it’d be SI units? It was calories in those days, and the necessary vitamins such as we knew about then, we hadn’t discovered all of them in that era. That’s what he was doing. And I told you when we were talking earlier about the sausages he made. I helped him but the secret of their contents died with him. [08:10] Can you describe what your mother was like to me as well please? Yes, she was a nurse. In those days had to pay to be a nurse, my grandfather paid for her to go to St Thomas’. The thing I didn’t like was she smoked like a chimney, which was very common then. The little story which is not relevant to me but to her, she got visited, or the hospital did, by an American gentleman, and the matron came along. My mother was showing the American round and she introduced the matron as © The British Library Board http://sounds.bl.uk Richard Brett-Knowles Page 5 C1379/66 Track 1 Miss Lloyd, still. The American took one look at her and said, ‘I’m not surprised.’ She wasn’t the world’s most beautiful person, the matron, not my mother. And she realised that farming and food just didn’t interest me, and she encouraged me in things she didn’t possibly understand, electrics and radio and chemistry.