Fame and Notoriety

It is amazing how selective memory is. One could assume that, having been through so much torment and conflict before the backdrop of the old familiar scene, we might never want to set eyes on it again. But the recollection of the recent past seemed rather like freshly rinsed fruit in a colander. The waters of trouble seep away, leaving only the solidity of happiness and peace. Harwell, our surroundings and our friends represented the reality of the present, and the nightmare faded as if it had never been.

We were delighted to find ourselves at home in Abingdon with a house and that hallmark of respectability, so essential at the time, our marriage certificate.

The logistics of this removal were the easiest imaginable. Apart from one or two minor differences from the house on the Fitzharries Estate, I knew the dimensions of all the rooms in our new home by heart. We were installed in record time. One of my uncles, a bachelor approaching old age, had given me the magnificent sum of five hundred pounds. We are always astonished when we remember how far we made it stretch. Both of us loved travelling and adventure, but we also wanted to put down roots and create an attractive and harmonious refuge for ourselves and the boys.

We visited auction rooms, junk shops and sales. We collected a few pieces of antique furniture, some carpets and one or two pictures. We have them now. This time I made my curtains from sapphire-coloured velvet which I lined and interlined. They were to last me more than twenty years. Bit by bit we installed a system for listening to music. This was the time when long-playing records were just beginning to appear, and we started to form a collection. An enterprising junior member of Harwell's staff had carefully ``lifted'' five or six exceedingly powerful bomber radios from a nearby air-base where they had lain abandoned since the end of the war, waiting to be broken up; the retail traders would never have tolerated the re-sale of such high quality receivers. Brian was on friendly terms with the thief and thus the proud possessor of one of the haul. We made a polished wooden baffle for the speaker, which brought us what was then the ``Third Programme'' as accurately as anything could before the days of stereo.

Right from the start Brian insisted that the boys should have a room each in which to pursue their individual hobbies and maintain a degree of privacy. We equipped them as ``bed-sitters'' where what went on was, within reasonable limits, entirely their own business. Brian, or ``Bean'' as they called him (and have done ever since), was and is the most devoted and concerned step-father they could have wished for.

Although compared with some of the houses we have since been fortunate enough to occupy, this was truly modest and quite devoid of character. It presented a soulless red brick face to the road and the field opposite, while the view from the back was of a patch of waterlogged wilderness. This was separated from a similar piece of dereliction, and another box-like ``semi'' by a flimsy wire fence. It was a challenge to as much inventiveness and imagination as we were capable of. We copied the Seligmans who were still living in their house on the Fitzharries Estate, a luxury cottage in comparison with its neighbours. Soon we too had our windows garnished with boxes of geraniums. We planted creepers to cover the brick, and honeysuckle to climb round the lurid yellow front door which the rules of the estate prevented us from painting another colour. As we got on rather well with the couple who lived directly behind us, we made a pair of steps over which we could scale the wire fence, as cutting it or inserting a gate would also have been against the regulations.

Brian has always had a flair for gardening and soon we had a lawn flanked by a multi-coloured herbaceous border, a patch of herbs by the kitchen door and, at the bottom of it all, up against the offending wire, a small vegetable patch designed so that our friends could help themselves to our lettuce when it was over-plentiful, in exchange for a marrow or two which we, in our turn, would purloin.

Few English gardeners had heard of mangetout peas, red lettuce and calibrese at that time, but we saw an advertisement by a lady called Kathleen Hunter who supplied seeds for these and other unusual plants from her nurseries in Cornwall. I often think of the worthy Kathleen and how much juicier her aubergines seemed compared with any I can buy to-day. I knew nothing of the laws concerning taking plants from the roadside in those days and once, when returning from a visit to the boys at school, I loaded the back of the car with bright yellow primroses. They all came up white the following year. This was divine Retribution, I suppose.

Our hearts were warmed by the welcome we received from our friends and all Brian's colleagues on the Harwell site. Everyone from Sir John and Lady Cockcroft to my erstwhile cleaning-lady seemed overjoyed to see us back. The Cockcrofts lost no time in sending us a particularly warm invitation. This rather surprised me as they were respectability personified. He ran a tight ship and we had caused something of a social commotion on the lower decks. The scandal might have earned us their disapproval. They seemed nonetheless totally oblivious to anything other than the fact that Brian was a bright young member of staff, and as a couple they were happy to have us return to the fold. The redoubtable, enormous Mrs Dimond who ``did'' for me on a once-weekly basis in the previous house, confronted me one day while I was shopping in Woolworths. Overflowing with good will and surplus flesh, she informed me, ``I'm not working these days, but I heard you were back and I'll come to you again. I haven't made any alteration in what I charge.'' She never waited to find out whether I could afford her services.

The Arnolds had moved to a picturesque Georgian house out in Marcham where they were able to indulge their passion for country life, and even kept a few pigs. Their landlady was an eccentric and ancient widow who was such a rabid teetotaller, and so inquisitive, that whenever we were invited in for a drink, someone had to keep a careful watch by the long windows while Henry extracted the bottles from the case of a grandfather clock.

The Skinners and the Peierls's were first among the many visitors who came to stay in the small room that, equipped with divans, did double duty as a guest-room and a study for Brian. Over the next few years, as in years to come, we were surrounded by what I always consider to be the greatest assets life has to offer, one's friends.

Denys Wilkinson was one of several university people who were appointed as consultants to Harwell. He became a frequent guest. Not only did he and Brian have a lot to discuss about their work but we also shared the same sense of humour, which at times took a bizarre turn. I remember one evening the three of us spent several hours trying to perfect the technique of holding large brandy balons on to our faces by suction. It was no mean feat, but every time one of us succeeded it was necessary to attract the attention of the others. This we could only do by making a noise, which in turn let some air escape so that the glass fell off. Once the pair of them were so engrossed in their discussion that it was some time before they realized that they had each helped themselves to, and were apparently enjoying, sherry and soda. There was always a laugh when Denys came, and we looked forward to his visits then as he did for years. Nowadays he is accompanied by his second wife, Helen, of whom we have become extremely fond. In order to be able to marry they had had divorce problems of a similar nature to ours, but rather more complicated as they had spanned two continents and occurred at a later stage in life. I like to think that they were grateful for the friendship of another couple who knew something of what they were suffering. We still joke and fool about despite our increasing years. Once Helen wrote to me, ``It was nice to see your funny faces again and talk all sorts of rubbish.''

Hans and Joan Kronberger would burst in exuberantly whenever work brought Hans to Harwell. The nice thing about Joan was that she was Hans's equal when it came to physical energy and enterprise. We were to share many a crazy venture with them too. We also were to share much of the sorrow that was to be their lot. Joan had a daughter in 1952. They called her Zoë and she resembled Hans; he was immensely proud of her. Unfortunately, Joan was taken ill almost immediately after the birth, with blinding headaches and hallucinations. Their doctor in Cheshire at first diagnosed ``post-natal hysteria'', but Hans was far from satisfied. He took her to Manchester to be looked at by the world-famous neurosurgeon, Sir Geoffrey Jefferson. Her symptoms turned out to be the first signs of a malignant brain tumour. She endured several operations over the years and much drug therapy. They both faced it with courage and even with humour, making jokes about any event that showed a remotely funny side. Such was Joan's optimism that in 1955, against medical advice and Hans's better judgement, she had another child, a second daughter called Sarah. When she told me frankly that she was planning another pregnancy I remonstrated gently and said, ``Do you really think it wise? You have Zoe and Paul.'' (Paul was her son from her first marriage to a young doctor called Neil Hanson, son of the professor of metallurgy in Birmingham University. Neil had been killed tragically in a climbing accident). ``They will soon both be at school and I shall get bored,'' said Joan in a matter of fact tone of voice. Sarah was born in what was to turn out to be Joan's last long remission. She lived another six years, gradually deteriorating and continually being taken to hospital. She spent the last two years of her life in what is euphemistically called a ``recovery hospital''. Now she and Hans are both long since dead, and Sarah was killed in an air crash at the age of twenty-four. It would have taken a latter-day Sophocles to chronicle the drama of that ill-fated family. They were marvellous friends.

We made new friends too. There was Alec Merrison, shortly to become Director of the Daresbury High Energy Laboratory. After the death of his first wife, he became Vice-Chancellor of Bristol University and acquired a new wife very shortly after taking up this position. They married in his University's Wills Hall Chapel, quietly, during the long vacation. Few people knew of the impending wedding, and only a handful of close friends and relatives were present. Brian was Best Man. Alec and Maureen had two children in quick succession not many years before he became a grandfather by one of the sons of his first marriage. He was duly knighted and held all manner of distinguished jobs at home and abroad before his untimely death from a brain tumour.

One of the most important couples who had just come to Harwell at the time were Alan and Jean Cottrell. Alan was a metallurgist of repute and of immense value to the establishment. Already a Fellow of the Royal Society at an early age, his reputation had been made by his work on the strength of metals. With them we shared a secret vice. Although we loved all manner of music we were also addicted to jazz, particularly to Rock'n'Roll which had just made its slightly disreputable debut, occasionally getting youngsters so over-enthusiastic that acts of thoughtless vandalism were committed during ``pop'' concerts. Unlike the willful destruction that goes on at football matches to-day, this outbreak was short-lived and the songs of Tommy Steel, Bill Haley and Elvis Presley became acceptable to most. I shall never forget Alan, looking very serious as he pulled papers concerning a meeting in London out of his briefcase. Concealed among the wads of dreary-looking documents was a sensational new record with a shiny and lurid design on the sleeve. It was called Rock around the Clock. Sir Alan Cottrell has since been a Cambridge professor, Chief Scientific Advisor to the Ministry of Defence and to the Government. He was also Master of Jesus College Cambridge and charged with the higher education of Prince Edward.

But what of our friends, and there are many, who never achieved fame? We have a great many, and public recognition never seems to make much difference either to them or to us.

Surrounded once more by so many good friends, old and new, I began to feel as if I had never been away. The interval between the two ``acts'' of the drama of our life in Harwell seemed a curiously short interlude.

Naturally, there were a few malicious tongues that could not resist having a wag. To some we represented the decline of morals and the toleration of wrong-doing. ``I'll give THAT marriage six months,'' one otherwise distinguished gentleman was heard to declare. An earnest young engineer with whom we were but casually acquainted gave Brian a watery welcome, but cut me dead; another informed the community in general that if we dared to show our shameless faces on the site again he would resign. Eventually he did, but we were told by those in authority not to let it worry us, for it was no great loss. Other than that I can think of no unpleasant comment, made either to our faces or reported as having been uttered behind our backs. We were inundated with invitations and we received many wedding or house-warming presents.

We were now not so far from the boys' school and could collect them at week-ends. They were delighted to see all their friends and their old haunts again, and were tremendously excited when, in 1953, we spent what was left of my uncle's handsome present on a television set. What spurred us on was the impending coronation, which we didn't want to miss, nor the conquest of Everest that accompanied it. We watched the preparations avidly, but when it came to the coronation itself a houseful of friends watched without us. My parents had obtained seats for all of us overlooking the route of the procession, and we saw a little bit of the real thing. The radiance of the young Queen on her journey back to the Palace in spite of torrents of rain was something no-one who witnessed it could ever forget. It seems strange today, when even families on supplementary benefit enjoy what the TV channels have to offer, that in those days a relatively small proportion of the population had this advantage.

One aspect of life at Harwell that altered radically for us was the amateur dramatic and concert scene. The community was becoming large and diffuse. The old gymnasium was pulled down, and a new auditorium of brick and concrete, known as Cockcroft Hall, was eventually erected just outside the security fence for performances of a much higher calibre. This building, typical of the post-war era, afforded quite a marked contrast with those that surrounded it, but it blended in and improved the appearance of the centre of the site. Its function was really two-fold. Because of its position on the edge of the security area, it could be used for establishment business of a classified nature, or it could be thrown open to a wider audience for lectures and colloquia that scientists from Oxford and elsewhere regularly attended, or sometimes it could be opened to the public for entertainment of a general nature. It helped to make Harwell seem less remote and shrouded in secrecy.

Petrol was no longer rationed, so we were released from our dependence on do-it-yourself activities. There were concerts in Oxford, and the Playhouse and the New Theatre provided as much entertainment as we could absorb. Quite apart from that, Brian was too deeply involved in creative work to leave much time for such extra-curricular activity. Our evenings took on a pleasing pattern. After dinner he would normally work at his desk until about nine-thirty, after which, usually in the company of friends and neighbours, we would round off the day by having a drink in one of the charming old pubs that this part of the country is famous for.

If I am giving the impression that our life was entirely easy, let me correct it. We were still rather short of money. I accepted that the boys' boarding school fees should be born by Oscar, but nothing else. We did not want them to feel that there was any competition between him and us where provision for their necessities and entertainment was concerned. But still, children grow, need new clothes, books, materials for their hobbies and many other things besides. I started to think seriously about brushing up my secretarial skills with a view to getting a part-time job, either at Harwell or locally. Meanwhile I became familiar with the auctions rooms of Oxford and the local second-hand shops, and learnt how to be an adept bargain-hunter. Every garment within the scope of my sewing machine and my capabilities was made at home. I seemed busier than ever.

AERE had undergone many changes, and even in the relatively short time I had been away, had grown and developed. New divisions had been formed, such as Health Physics under Greg Marley, Isotopes under Henry Seligman, and Reactor Physics under John Dunworth, to mention but a few. Otto Robert Frisch had left for a chair in Cambridge, and his place as head of the Nuclear Physics Division was taken by Egon Bretscher. In turn, Egon was replaced as head of Chemistry by Robert Spence, who subsequently joined the new University of Kent at Canterbury as vice chancellor. Hans Kronberger had gone to Capenhurst in Cheshire, where there was a new establishment for separating uranium isotopes.

The senior staff consisted of Sir John Cockcroft as Director, assisted by the Secretary of the Establishment. There were in all fifteen divisions, but only fourteen Division Heads. No-one had been found to run the Theoretical Physics Division since the arrest of Klaus Fuchs. It had been taken care of on a part-time basis by Rudi Peierls, and subsequently by Professor Maurice Pryce from the Clarendon Laboratory in Oxford. In spite of their great competence, this was hardly a satisfactory way to look after a vital part of the whole research programme. Neither was willing to take it on full-time. It was a difficult post to fill. It obviously needed someone academically qualified, able to administrate, organize and co-ordinate the work. But in view of what had happened, the new leader would have to be someone of unimpeachable political reliability and free from the slightest suggestion of any loyalty which could turn out to take priority over that which he owed to the country. It was also obvious that he should be British by birth. Although reasonably well-paid, and involving responsibility as well as prestige, it was not a job that would appeal to many of those deemed to be suitable. To expect an academic of distinction to give up his university post in order to take over this challenge would be asking rather a lot. For some of them it had not been long since they had turned their backs on war-time secrecy, and they were not ready to return to restricted work so soon.

It was thus that one of the biggest surprises of our lives occurred in December 1952, when we had been in our new home for about three months. It was a cold evening, and I was sitting by the dining-room fire trying to work out how much we could spend on Christmas presents for the family. The financial position, despite all our efforts, was far from satisfactory. I had been slogging away at my shorthand and typing speeds with the aid of the radio and the battered typewriter, but a job that would allow me time off to be with the children when they came home seemed difficult to find. I enquired about typing manuscripts at home, but that would mean investing in a new machine. If people pay good money for such a service they expect all the characters to show up, preferably in proper alignment. I decided it would be better to return to dress-making.

Brian came home early that night. There was a delighted look on his face, but one tempered by amazement, and incredulity. He told me that Maurice Pryce had taken him aside and told him in the strictest confidence that Cockcroft had made a decision concerning the Theoretical Physics Division. Brian was to be offered the Headship. His salary would be almost doubled; he would have a seat on the Steering Committee and a voice in the running of the entire establishment. Just for the immediate future he would have to be content with the rank of Senior Principal Scientific Officer, rather than Deputy Chief Scientific Officer which was the rank Klaus had held at the time of his arrest. Moreover, for the time being, the appointment would be that of ``Acting'' Division Head. Even so it was a double promotion. All things considered this seemed eminently reasonable. Cockcroft, after consultation with his senior staff, had taken a gamble, acted on a hunch, or at least taken an unprecedented step. Brian was just twenty-eight years old.

Once the announcement of Brian's appointment was made, the press went mad. ``Scientist of 28 is given Fuchs's A-job,'' was the banner headline on the front of one daily tabloid. ``Pastor's son gets Fuchs's job,'' appeared over a large photograph in a more restrained paper that clearly wanted to emphasize the reliability implicit in Brian's background. (Had they forgotten that Klaus's father was also a pastor?) The Times, Telegraph and the Manchester Guardian gave the news considerable coverage. Even the New York Times featured it at the top of its column, ``Notes on Science''. So sensitive was the appointment that it had to be made clear to the public that Churchill himself had intervened, and that Brian's credentials had been checked for months. There were pictures of Brian playing the piano, Brian tinkering with his car, Brian looking solemn, Brian grinning like a Cheshire cat. I have an album full of cuttings. ``It is not my fame,'' Brian said sadly, ``but my predecessor's notoriety''.

It seemed that every hack reporter in the country wanted an interview. Our telephone had yet to be installed, but the front door bell rang constantly. Eventually we decided to leave our house for the night and give them the slip. We made our escape after dark by crawling down the garden path, hiding behind the compost heap, and scaling the ladder over the wire fence that separated us from the friends whose ground backed on to ours. These neighbours played the game of subterfuge with enthusiasm and laughter. No sooner had they let us in through their back door than our pursuers started banging at their front entrance. While Brian and I were giggling almost uncontrollably in a broom cupboard we heard our staunch companions denying any knowledge of our whereabouts. I felt for those poor gentlemen of the press. Obviously their editors were not going to let them go home far a good night's rest until they came up with a sensational story, so they parked their cars, preparing far an all-night vigil. For several days subsequently we were not to be left in peace. One can always refuse to open the door, but how much noise and harassment is it possible to cope with? What a mercy that TV cameras and cassette recorders had yet to become such essential tools of the media.

Figure 11.1: A press cutting from 1952

Figure 11.2: Peter, Mary, Michael and Brian in 1952

Figure 11.3: Mary and Brian in 1953

It was Henry Arnold who hit on a partial solution. ``Tell them you are under instructions not to answer questions, and send them to me,'' he told us. I confess that after having been disturbed for the umpteenth time one evening, I directed one poor chap with his pad and pencil poised for what he hoped would be a fat scoop, to the Arnold's house in Marcham by just about the most circuitous route I could think of. I expect his paper could stand the cost of the extra petrol involved.

In Harwell there were mixed reactions. One or two found it hard to conceal their pique at having been passed over for this plum of a job and having an erstwhile junior promoted over their heads, but the majority gave Brian every possible promise of support and encouragement. His feet were now firmly on the ladder of what was to turn out to be an interesting and successful career, and our life was to be broadened in all manner of respects. There would be invitations to attend more conferences, to give lectures, to participate in policy decisions. There was to be a lot of travel to interesting places and introductions to the great and the good in many lands. Above all, there was the opportunity to acquire leadership skills at an early age, and to participate in an enterprise of national importance. His debt to Harwell and to those who set him on his unexpected path he has always felt he can never repay, and a portrait of Sir John Cockcroft adorns his study wall to this day.

That I was part of it was my enormous good fortune. Once again in the course of ten years, I had stepped out of line and defied the conventions of the time; yet instead of being relegated to a life of drab obscurity, which was obviously what my adversaries hoped for, I appeared to have won a prize of great value. In this context I was to learn an immensely sobering lesson. The few people who had sat in judgement upon us, and condemned us publicly for the way we ran our private lives, were among the first to alter their attitudes. Quite suddenly they hailed us with feigned respect and insincere affection. It is in times of success and happiness, as well as in times of sorrow and difficulty, that one learns to distinguish between fair and foul weather friends. I am glad to place on record that there were not many of the latter.

When the excitement died down, Brian had to face this challenging job in earnest. That it would be a difficult assignment he never doubted, but there were aspects of the work that took us both by surprise. One of these was the level of security involved. We both had to undergo a process known as ``positive vetting'', required of all senior staff; for there was work going on in the division that otherwise he could not be allowed to hear about. This meant that for a time every facet of our lives, whether connected with our work, our bank balances, our personalities, our families, or even our friends, came under the most detailed scrutiny. Henry brought a benign man from Special Branch to see me. Characteristically he tried to reassure me that I was not about to receive a ``third degree'' type barrage of questions. ``Look, my dear,'' he said, as he stepped into the house and hung up his coat, ``I have a colleague in the car. Could he come in? He is an awfully nice chap.'' Someone was once heard to joke that were Henry visiting someone in the condemned cell he would describe the public executioner in the same glowing terms. I did not find the process painful. To tell the truth it rather amused me; but I was quite staggered at the questions the ``awfully nice chap'' asked me. What relevance they could have had to Brian's dependability to safeguard classified information I could not imagine. To some the whole process is regarded as an indignity, but I never thought of it as such. I made a full confession of my youthful flirtations with leftist politics, and stated, I hope without arrogance, that my old friends were my old friends whether they had carried Communist Party cards or not. Nothing I said seemed to be news to Henry and his colleague. They had obviously done their homework on me. I had been weighed in the balance, and not found wanting.

It still puzzles me slightly when I think how easily and readily I was accepted as trustworthy.

One of the things that had aroused Henry's suspicions before they became centred on Klaus as the traitor in the camp, was that he, as the Head of the Theoretical Physics Division, was always so compliant with directives from the Security Office. Clever academics are not usually so cooperative! When some piece of paper with petty-fogging instructions about the care of certain files and door-keys, or the need to keep briefcases within sight, arrived on the desks of senior members of staff, they were often greeted with derision. The tone of such over-meticulous do's and don'ts was regarded by the majority of the scientists as condescending and unnecessary, and the place for these memoranda was obviously the waste-paper basket. Not with Klaus. He would solemnly cause all his staff to be made fully aware of every word they contained. He earned a reputation as the most security-conscious person at Harwell. Discreet at all times, he would never reveal one jot or tittle of anything remotely confidential; unless, of course, he had the ear of a Soviet Agent.

Now that Brian had moved into Klaus's office, he had also inherited his safe. Speculation as to the contents of this potential mine of revealing information was unendurably exciting. But no-one knew the combination, Klaus's secretary had long since gone to other employment, and even had she been traced it might have been tactless to put such a direct question to her. She had been greatly upset by what had happened, and had left Harwell entirely of her own volition. It was also deemed inadvisable to call Stafford Prison, where Klaus was by now detained, to enlist his help. There was only one other solution. A cracksman was called in.

One loves to imagine this individual as a big-time criminal with a record of robberies on the grand scale, having served his sentence and decided that he could make a decent living by going straight. We shall never know about that; but we do know that he arrived carrying a stethoscope and a four pound hammer, demanding to be left alone in the room to perform his task in silence. ``Not on your life,'' was Henry's reply, sitting himself down to watch, and instructing his deputy to do likewise. The exercise turned out to be fascinating. With a security officer on each side of him, the expert fiddled with the knob, listening far more intently than a doctor does to a wheezing chest. From time to time he would pick up the hammer and hit the safe with all his force. This continued for about half an hour. Finally, after a prolonged struggle, the tumblers fell and the door opened. ``That is simply not good enough,'' was Henry's conclusion, and a new, infinitely more powerful strong-box was ordered to replace it. But before the cracksman left, he was asked what the hammer had been for. ``Oh, that's just to relieve my tension,'' he replied.

The contents of Klaus's coffer turned out to be the most pathetic anti-climax; nothing but a few inconsequential notes.

peter 2011-07-25