Dave Andrews (1956):
RGO staff used to do country dancing on the lawn on warm summer evenings.
I shall never forget the fire-drill practice out of turret windows too.
Also a special memory for me was when the AR asked during a lecture who was
playing a recorder upstairs in the evenings. It was little me!
Woolley asked me to supper in his private rooms and we played Bach all
evening. Him on the grand piano. That was better than all the astronomy
tuition we received.
Alan Crocker (1956):
I am Alan Godfrey Crocker and there were only six of us while I
was there and not 13 as on your list. The only other student whose
name I remember is David (Dai) Tonge, partly because we were both from
the Maths Department at Imperial and partly because we were both from
South Wales, Dai from Merthyr and me from Pontypridd. Five of us had
bedrooms on the top floor of the Castle, behind the battlements, but
the only girl came in each day from home; I think from Hailsham.
Your list says that I worked on the Meridian project. This involved
analysing photographs of the sky taken at midnight with a photographic
zenith tube in order to determine accurate values for the average
latitude and longitude of Herstmonceux. I, with colleagues, took some
of the photos.
The lab I worked in was on the ground floor and on one occasion I
arrived from the battlements using the rope and harness fire escape
and entered through a window.
Richard Woolley was a keen English Folk Dancer and organised a dance
one evening each week on the castle lawn. In the first week we
students watched from the battlements and laughed at the
performance. However in the second week we went down to the lawn and
watched from there. Then in the third week we joined in and enjoyed it
and also did for the remaining three or so weeks. This meant that when
I went to Sheffield that autumn to do my PhD in theory of materials I
joined the University Folk Dance Club and met my wife.
We did of course have lectures on astronomy on many mornings. I don't
remember any of these but I probably have notes I took stored away
somewhere.
Woolley was also keen on tennis and played mixed doubles with one of
the female staff. They entered a tournament at Hailsham but for some
reason Woolley had to pull out at a late stage and his partner asked
me to deputise for him. I agreed but no-one told the organisers so I
was introduced over the loudspeakers as the Astronomer Royal.
During my first term at Sheffield, Woolley came to give a lecture at
the University stressing, I recall, the impossibility of space
travel. Sputnik was launched shortly afterwards.
Since then my career has been at the University of Surrey, teaching
physics and carrying out theoretical and modelling research on
defects in materials and I have not been involved in
atronomy. However the Department has developed a successful
Astrophysics Group in the last few years.
Brian Trustrum (1956):
I am George Brian Trustrum, known usually as Brian.
At the end of our four-week course Sir
Richard Woolley (Astronomer Royal) interviewed us and said
to me, "I am so glad you came on the course. If you had not you might have got a
job at Herstmonceux and we would have had to get rid of you".
I had explained to him, that I am not good at the long tedious calculations that
were then required of astronomers. Computers have now made
a great difference, but I did have a satisfying career lecturing in mathematics
at the University of Sussex. My wife and I were founding members of the
Mathematics Division there. Till The Royal Observatory moved there was
considerable contact between physics at Sussex and the RGO.
I am still interested in Astronomy and a member of The Isle of Man Astronomical
Society and gave a short talk on the 1956 Summer Course. I told
them about an advantage of dirty observatories. During WWII a German bomb moved
the RGO Solar telescope. Fortunately due to wartime staff
shortages the telescope was dirty and a water leak had left a channel through
the dust. It was a simple matter to line up the channel on the base of the
telescope with the channel on the floor. I had been told this as a genuine story
when on the course.
The staff were very friendly. We enjoyed country dancing on the lawns, and
cooking evening meals as a group. Three administrators, including a
Mr Cook were co-operative in sharing the kitchden with us. It was very nice
living in the splendor of an old castle with modern living conditions and carp
in the moat.
Nearby was an old village church, where Viscount Hailsham / Quintiin Hogg was
Church Warden. He was not there when I attended evensong.
I had the privilege of being at the same table and talking to Tommy Gold at
breakfast one day and Carl Sagan another day. They both paid brief
visits to the RGO whilst we were there. On a personal level I enjoyed meeting an
aunt for the first time. She had retired to Bexhill. I spent an evening
teaching her about the application permutations to football pool coupons. She
was not a heavy better. One member of staff invited the group of
students to his home one evening and one of the secretaries did the same and we
had a great game of Monopoly at her house. Altogether it was a
thoroughly enjoyable four weeks and I saw the site of the Battle of Hastings.
Names of other students: Miss V.M. Martin was Valerie. She invited the group to her home one
evening and it turned out that her father and my father had been
dental students together at Liverpool University. Both had retired from practice
and were then Dental Officers with the National Health Service
(assessing the price of non-straightforward dental work). He was in Eastbourne
and my father in the Isle of Man. She and another student started
the week before the rest of us. His name was Peter. They did not live in the
Castle with us, but he gave her a lift in his car each day. I am fairly sure it
was a small pre-war Austin. I did not know his surname but I deduce from your
first e-mail that he was Peter Matthews.
The Head of the Solar group was Dr Pete Weyman (I think I have the spelling
correct). He was a nice fellow, probably under 30. He lived in Bexhill and
gave me a lift the first time I went to see my Aunt there. The routine work of
the Solar Group consisted mainly of recording sunspots and flares. Each day
they tried to take a photo of the Sun using the Solar Telescope. They nearly
always got a photo, although a great deal of patience was often
needed in bad weather, as is always the case in observational astronomy. After
being developed, the motions of the Sunspots were analysed. I, like most of
the members of the Solar Group, had a book. Each spot or group of spots was
allocated a page each day. The position on the photograph
was recorded on the top of the page together with the time and date. Then
following an algorithm a series the results of calculations were recorded
on subsequent lines of the page, till at the bottom there appeared the spherical
coordinates of the position of the spot or group of spots on the
surface of the Sun. In other words, starting with the position on the flat disc
of the photograph one calculated the position on the almost spherical
surface of the Sun. Unfortunately I understand such records of Sunspots are no
longer made.
There was a Charlie Sheffield doing research on the shape of hanging drops at
Cambridge in about 1961. I met him in the Engineering Laboratory.
I have no idea if he was the Charlie Sheffield on your list or not.
There were two separate non-overlapping courses
at the RGO in 1956 so I would not have met about half the students on your list.
Bernard Pagel joined the staff about the time our course started.
Tony Gordon-Smith (1957):
We had to do country dancing Monday evenings with the girls who operated
the Facit adding machines and would play bridge with Richard Woolley at night.
After travels in Africa and working as Asst Prof (Statistics) in
Ahma De Bello University Zaria Nigeria went to Oxford Linacre College.
Spending my time these days in politics as Mayor and Councillor in Waverley
Borough Surrey. Best place to live in England. Am writing, painting in spare
time.
George Miley (1961):
I think that I was the youngest in the group - a raw 19 year old just
finishing my first year at UCD.
Besides receiving a marvelous introduction to astronomy, we all had
great fun at Herstmonceux. Two things stick in my memory. First there
was a then healthy and articulate Stephen Hawking replacing the Royal
Navy flag on the castle with a hammer and sickle.
Then there was the debutantes ball. The Astronomer Royal, Richard
Woolley had several friends in British high society and "lent" the
castle to one of them for his daughter's "coming out" ball. I am not
sure whether this was legal, given that the castle was owned by the
British tax payer. However, they couldn't prevent us lower class
students from being there. To an Irish socialist it was an eye
opener. The party (see some of the photos) must have cost a fortune
and I remember that our feeling of inequality prompted us to
requisition a case (or maybe several cases) of debutantes champagne
which kept us happy for the rest of our stay in the castle.
Another memory: we were allowed to order newspapers to be brought into
breakfast every morning. I took great pleasure in having one of the
navy people bring the Daily Worker to the refectory on a tray every
morning!
Robert Smith (1961, 1962):
One of the good things about the summer school was the opportunity to
mix with a range of other students from different
universities. Unusually, there was one graduate student with us,
Jayant Narlikar, who was one of four of us who worked with Olin
Eggen. I don't remember what the others did, but I can remember
plotting diagrams of stars in velocity space, looking for Eggen's
moving groups - it was really interesting to watch the groups emerge
as more stars were added.
One of the four, who worked at the next desk to mine, was the late
Michael Friedjung, who suffered from considerable clumsiness, and some
naivety. He had the habit of swearing loudly when things weren't going
well. At that time, the RGO was reasonably advanced in its 'personal
computing' facilities, with the occasional electric Marchant
calculating machine being available. Mostly, however, we were reliant
on an old hand-operated Brunsviga calculator (anyone else remember
these?), and Michael became pretty rapid at using it, so on one
occasion someone issued a challenge for Michael to do a certain
calculation on the Brunsviga while the other person did the same
calculation on the Marchant - it was quite a sight to watch Michael
turning the handle at great speed! Sadly, I don't remember who won,
although it was probably the Marchant user.
The students were up to the usual pranks (such as flying inappropriate
objects from the castle flagstaff), but two particular episodes stick
in my mind. One of these involved Stephen Hawking - this was before he
had been diagnosed with his terrible disease, so he appeared entirely
normal, except that he was clearly exceptionally bright; he was the
only one of us who dared to disagree with Woolley on scientific points
- and Woolley loved their discussions. We had a student common room,
above the then castle dining room, and were allowed a selection of
daily papers. Stephen had left-wing sympathies, and asked for the
Daily Worker - which we duly got. Some of us decided to use this as an
opportunity to play a joke on him. We knew he was going up to the
social club (near the west entrance) one evening, so we went up to the
battlements and watched until we were sure he was there. We then
phoned up the club on the internal phone system, and said that the
Security Officer would like to see Mr Hawking, and would he come
across to the West Building to meet him. We then scuttled back to the
battlements to see if would go. When we saw that he was on his way, we
phoned again, and said that the Security Officer had changed his mind,
and would Mr Hawking instead go to the Astronomer Royal's office after
breakfast the next morning. This message having been duly delivered,
we unkindly left him to worry overnight. At breakfast the next
morning, he was complaining about this summons to see Woolley, so we
explained that it was just a joke. Like Queen Victoria, he was not
amused, but I don't think he held it against us.
The other episode involved a fire-hose. The male students all slept in
the observers' quarters on the top floor, above the ballroom (of which
more below), and there was a fire-hose on a stand in the corridor,
'for emergency use only'. One night, some of the students started
larking about with it, unrolling it and playing with it (although not,
I think, spraying water - I don't remember the details). They were of
course making quite a noise, and unfortunately we were not aware that
the door at the end of the corridor led into the Astronomer Royal's
private flat! Eventually Woolley emerged in his dressing-gown and
everybody shot back into their rooms. Woolley stormed along the
corridor, demanding that everyone come out of their rooms, which most
people did. However, Michael Friedjung, not realising who was banging
on his door and not having had anything to do with the episode, simply
shouted "Go to hell!", at which point I think Woolley said who he
was. I don't remember the further details of the night, or whether any
sanctions were imposed (apart from clearing up the mess) but suffice
it to say that there was never any more noise on that top corridor!
Woolley liked students and interacted with them on all possible
occasions. He took students observing with him (I remember being with
him in 1961 on the 28-inch refractor - now at Greenwich - measuring
visual double stars by matching the images for angle and separation with
an artificial double star projected into the same field of view) and he
always asked Scottish students whether they played golf and, if the
answer was yes, he would take them to play at Lewes Golf Club. That is
how I got my first view of Lewes, where I now live. We were about evenly
matched (in other words, neither of us was very good!), but he generally
won. I made sure, however, that I beat him on my 21st birthday in 1962!
Another example, which I only heard about, happened in 1962 (I believe)
to one of our number who played the piano. He saw that there was a grand
piano in the ballroom, so he went in and played it. What he didn't know
was that it was Woolley's own piano, which he kept in the ballroom
because there was no room for it in his flat. While he was playing,
Woolley came in behind him, having heard the music from his flat and
intending (I suppose) to tell him to stop. However, he was impressed by
the student's playing, and the only penalty was that he then had to play
duets with Woolley!
Finally, no account of that summer school would be complete without
mentioning what we called the 'Debs Ball'. This was a big party, held
in the Castle (possibly some girl's 21st birthday), and involving
dinner jackets and ball gowns, with dancing in the ballroom (it was
the time of stiletto heels, and Woolley was later furious at all the
marks they had made on his nice ballroom floor). Since the students
were resident in the castle, we couldn't have been stopped from
gate-crashing, so they bowed to the inevitable and invited us all (a
small perturbation on a large event). I have no idea where we got our
posh clothes from (hired, I suspect), but I have a photograph [see
main page] showing some of us in dinner jackets and posh frocks. We
had a great time, and the party went on all night. In the early
morning, a few of us (two couples) climbed the hill to the equatorial
group to try to see Mercury in the dawn sky (I think we succeeded). As
we were coming down again, the party was breaking up and people were
going to their cars. When they asked us where we had been (with
knowing looks), we told them - but I don't think anyone believed us!
Hilary Pearson (1964):
I have happy memories of that summer at Herstmonceux, particularly
playing croquet in the evenings on the lawn behind the castle, and the
group scientific observation of the Perseid meteor shower organised by
Lionel Wilson.
You may be interested to know that the latter involved eight of us
lying facing the main compass points, heads to the centre. Lionel had
rigged up a recorder which had a feed from the atomic clock for
time. When anyone spotted a meteor they spoke loud enough to be picked
up by the recorder, giving estimated length of the trail in degrees
and estimated brightness (by that time in August we had all done
enough observing to be reasonably good at doing this). Unfortunately,
it clouded over in the early hours, but we stuck it out for most of
the night. I was fortunate - because I was going on a camping trip
immediately after the summer school, I had a sleeping bag with me. I
never heard whether Lionel was able to analyse the recording or get
any useful data from it.
Another memory is that, for the second half of our stay, Richard
Woolley's assistant was away on honeymoon, and he picked me as her
temporary replacement. This meant that I got to do calculations on
his electronic calculator, the first I had ever seen (it was the size
of a cash register). All other calculations were done on hand-cranked
calculators or slide rules. My grandchildren refuse to believe there
was a time when we didn't have electronic calculators.
I ended up spending most of my career as a lawyer specialising in
intellectual property, particularly dealing with the information
technology industry. I started as a barrister, spent 10 years
practising in the US, since 1990 I have worked as a solicitor in this
area, primarily doing patent litigation and IT contracts.
Lionel Wilson (1964):
I recall snippets of that summer at Herstmonceux, all happy memories,
though I confess I had forgotten the meteor observing session until I
saw Hilary Pearson's recollection (and yes Hilary, the results got
processed and sent to the BAA Meteor Section).
One highlight was my interview with the Astronomer Royal, Sir Richard
Woolley, who tried to convince me that planetary science was a waste
of time. This inspired me to sign up for a PhD on a lunar science
topic at the University of London Observatory at Mill Hill after I
graduated. I lived through the Apollo era as a graduate student
working on the physical structure of the Moon's surface. When we saw
lava flows in the lunar maria I got interested in how volcanism would
differ between planets as a result of differences in gravity and
atmospheric pressure, and this has dominated my career.
After a post-doc at London I joined the then very young Lancaster
University as a lecturer in 1970. I made professor at Lancaster in
1988 and stayed there, with visiting professorships at Brown
University and the University of Hawai'i providing diversity and ready
access to NASA planetary data - and in the latter case, erupting
volcanoes. I am now retired, but emeritus at Lancaster and still
active; I continue to visit Brown intermittently and spend 2 months of
each year at the University of Hawai'i.
Michael Dopita (1967):
Reg Harbour (1967):
We were all having lunch one day in the canteen
when a couple of guys from the engineering department came in very excited. They
proudly showed us a photograph they had taken the night before of, not surprisingly, a
star. Perhaps nobody not even them really understood the significance of the picture
although everyone was politely enthusiastic. The picture comprised four quadrants in
different shades of grey and therein lies the clue. It was, they said, the first ever
digital picture taken in the UK (world?) and was 2 pixels x 2 pixels. If the penny had
dropped there and then, any one of us could have been a multi-billionaire by now!
Last revised 9 February 2015
Chris Benn (crb@ing.iac.es)