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In the years before the war Harwell was a minute village about three miles to the south-west of the railway town of Didcot. There was nothing particularly special about it: just a pleasant, part-Norman church, a few shops interspersed with thatched, half-timbered houses, and the usual disproportionate number of pubs.
It had a fine reputation for its cherry orchards which produced the juiciest morellos I have tasted anywhere. Green, rural and typically English, it was the sort of place where time stood still and life was ruled by the seasons. The birds sang loudly in springtime, and later on the smell of wood-smoke hung in the air until the frost arrived. Anyone whose family had not lived there for at least two generations was regarded as an intruder and to be treated with the gravest suspicion. No wonder the villagers were grieved to find their name linked evermore with the Atomic Energy Research Establishment (AERE).
During the 1930s a number of Royal Air Force stations had been built up and down the country, all on the same rather functional and uninspired architectural pattern. One of these was to be found nearby on the road which links Oxford and Newbury. It provided a certain amount of employment for those in and around Didcot, who were not actively engaged in agriculture or the Great Western Railway. The local people called it ``that camp'' in the same tone of voice that they would use to refer to a public lavatory; an eyesore that they could do nothing about. When it was chosen as the site for Britain's post-war atomic energy research the whole area was to undergo a fundamental change, and for most people the name of Harwell was never again to be associated with its delicious fruit. Why AERE. bears its name has always remained a mystery to me. It is in fact a little nearer to the village of Chilton, where the Rutherford Appleton Laboratory now stands. It is even closer to Rowstock, then a microscopic cluster of houses around the local police station at a perilous cross-road half a mile to the north, but now engulfed in a large arterial intersection. ``Harwell'' it is, nevertheless.
The ``camp'' consisted of four enormous aircraft-hangars that were considered suitable for the first of the planned experimental reactors, and a group of convenient administrative buildings whose red brick was just beginning to shed some of the blotchy green, brown and grey camouflage paint necessary for protecting them from day-light enemy air attack. There were two runways, laughably short by to-day's standards, but nonetheless making an unsightly gash in the rolling Downs of what was then the Royal County of Berkshire.
This gentle, hilly countryside has a wealth of history. The Roman Ridgeway is within a few minutes walk, and the pre-Saxon Icknield Way bisects the area. From the main gate those curious twin mounds known as the Wittenham Clumps stood out on the skyline, not yet dwarfed by the Didcot power station of recent times. Mercifully, the extended complex of the present-day experimental establishment of the Atomic Energy Authority is hidden in a hollow, and as you approach it from the south it remains invisible, apart from the tops of a couple of tall chimneys, until you are within less than three miles of it.
This is King Alfred's country. The first English monarch fought many of his battles against the Danes in the neighbourhood of his birthplace, Wantage, which is only a few miles to the west. There are dense woods, and villages of character and beauty, such as the Hendreds. The Vale of the White Horse, so-called because of the immense pre-historic carving in the chalky surface of a hillside, is not far away, and in a nearby hamlet the great king's ``blowing stone'' still stands. It is an extraordinary rock with so many holes that he was able to use it as a primitive trumpet for summoning his troops. Tourists try, with varying degrees of success, to reproduce the sound. We were surrounded by some of the loveliest parts of the Thames Valley against which this sprawl of twentieth century brick and concrete almost jarred the senses, so sharp was the contrast.
The housing that had been provided for the Air Force personnel was going to be anything but adequate for the thousands about to be recruited. Originally there were some ``married quarters'', as they were called. A short, winding road of solid, well-planned houses of varying sizes for officers, according to rank, was cut off and screened by a hedge of beech trees - a horticultural ``green baize door'' - from those, far less attractive, that had been designed for staff who were lower down the social scale: the non-commissioned officers and aircraftsmen. There was also an Officer's Mess, which had been renamed ``Staff Club A'' - and a vast barracks of a Sergeants' Mess that was to be known as ``Staff Club B''. Within a year or two their names had been changed again. To be less institutional, they were called ``Ridgeway House'' and ``Icknield House'', respectively. These were to provide hostel accommodation for single members of staff, and rooms for various social activities.
As a temporary measure, the runways and the hillocks flanking them had been fringed with rows of prefabricated houses produced by the Bristol Aircraft Company. These gave it the general appearance of a penal colony. The life expectancy of these tiny tin boxes was said to be ten years. For nearly forty years they were still standing and lived in, but engulfed in foliage. The saplings planted in those early days have become tall trees, and the gardens that so many early inhabitants struggled to dig out of that tough, lumpy soil look as if they had always been there, and are what is usually described by estate agents as ``mature''. Those who were not there at the time would be hard pressed to visualise the bleak, muddy desolation of the scene in the spring of 1946.
On the day of my arrival, I was taken to see the man in charge of administering the site, and arranging the tenancy of the houses, a serious long-faced gentleman called ``Mr A.B. Jones'' (I never heard his first name used). He was the epitome of a correct British Civil Servant. Impeccable in his well-pressed clothes, his Brylcreamed hair looked as if he had used a ruler to ensure that the parting was straight, and his manner was dry and forthright. His wife showed me round the comfortable house in which she seemed to be contentedly settled. It was in ``South Drive'', the officers' road, and separated, as they all were, from its neighbours by a respectably fenced garden as befits the household of a privileged family. Her kindness was somewhat wasted. The CO's house was obviously set aside for the Cockcrofts. All the other houses standing on the ``commissioned'' side of the beech-tree hedge were earmarked by this time, except for the top half of the spacious mansion that I think had previously been the home of the second in command. It was in the process of being divided into two flats. I looked at the shambles and shuddered. Never since the air-raids had I beheld such a mess of torn floor-boards and fallen plaster. Who knew when it would be ready for occupation? Mr A B Jones didn't. In the meantime I told him that it was ``just inhumane'' to expect a family to move into it. He stared at me in bewilderment. This sort of accusation was not what he was accustomed to.
It seemed that fate had decreed that I was never to have a reasonable place to live in. Although a ``prefab'' would offer more square feet than the little house in Berkeley, the idea of living in one with a family did not appeal to me. Loftily I declared that we weren't pygmies. Finally I settled for an unlovely, semi-detached house behind the great ``social divide''. It had been built with a small degree of seniority in mind, but definitely not for the gentry. One of four, designed for senior non-commissioned officers, it stood slightly aloof, just across the road from, but with its back to, a U-shaped row of terraced houses, each identical to the next, where the humble aircraftsmen had lived. They had now been succeeded by the posse of security policemen required to guard the establishment, and their families. The chief police officer, bluff and kindly Inspector Jennings, was already installed with his wife and son, as befitted his station, in one of the four NCO's quarters, next door but one to us. Beyond our yards, coal-bunkers and washing-lines lay a communal grass play-area which was enclosed by this depressingly ugly rectangle of brick, small windows, unembellished doors, and dark passages leading through to tiny gardens at the rear. Children screamed, dogs barked and footballs were kicked violently. It took me only a few days to regret my decision to live here. Class distinction was still rife, and the travelling salesmen, on whom we were dependent through lack of transport and petrol, always saved their best goods, not to mention their manners, for the ``superior'' side of the frontier.
The house itself could have been adequate but its facilities were not. There were three rooms downstairs: a living-room, a kitchen and a scullery. I have chosen to describe them like this deliberately, for the stove, a rusty, coal-fired monster with one hot-plate and a water-heater, glared at me defiantly from its recess in the kitchen. The sink and larder were in the chilly scullery with an uninviting tiled floor that was hard and damp beneath my feet. I was forced to the conclusion that we were expected to cook and eat in one room, but wash the pots and pans, and keep our stores, in another. Getting even the simplest of meals was going to involve a considerable amount of unnecessary movement and mess. Never before had I felt so humiliated nor so homesick for the wonderful, convenient United States.
Now, with my spirits sinking, I felt I understood the full meaning of ``working-class wife''. Upstairs the three bedrooms had low ceilings, but there was a bathroom with a small utilitarian tub and, what was obviously considered the height of refinement, a separate toilet. Cynically I told myself to be thankful that it wasn't in the back yard. The only sources of heat were open grates - and the monster. I went weak at the knees. Despite the offer of a well-meaning Ministry of Works employee, whose job it was to look after housing, to show me how to light the beastly thing, and a promise that he could get it red-hot in twenty minutes, I refused point blank. In no circumstances was I even going to attempt it. I added imperiously that this was the twentieth century, that shovelling coal was not my line and that until a workable gas or electric cooker was installed I proposed to take my family to eat all their meals in Ridgeway House. I carried out my threat, and within a surprisingly few days a gas stove of sorts appeared in the scullery so that it could be used as a kitchen.
Ignoring the monster caused all sorts of mishaps, particularly when trying to heat the water with the two electric cylinders I had with some difficulty managed to acquire. One at a time was all the inadequate circuit could cope with, and I was continually blowing a fuse by plugging in an electric kettle or using one of my American gadgets and expecting hot water simultaneously. The gentleman from the Ministry of Works was impatient with me for perpetrating these mishaps. He had better uses for his time than taking my fuse-box apart. Why couldn't I behave like a reasonable housewife and use the facilities provided, he wanted to know? But I continued to be unreasonable and inept. Lighting a fire in one of the upstairs grates resulted in the children's clothes, which I had hoped to dry in front of it, being put to the torch. Our loo refused to flush, and when we had the first real rainstorm I had to erect an umbrella in the living-room to protect the leather-work on my writing desk from a leak in the window frame. To add insult to injury, I found that the small corner cupboards in the bedrooms stopped short about three feet from the ceiling. Clearly, not even a Flight Sergeant's wife was expected to hang up any long evening dresses.
Gradually we got organized. Peter was enrolled in Harwell's little dame-school, and I engaged the adenoidal teen-age daughter of one of the Staff Club cleaning-ladies as a ``mother's help''. Her name was ``Nadella'' which I was told was the Russian diminutive for ``nadia'' which means ``hope''. ``Little Hope'' seemed apt! That the children remained safe and healthy despite her erratic ministrations was fortunate. She was abysmally stupid and, with hindsight, mentally subnormal. However, she did come daily, which meant that I could occasionally risk leaving her in charge, go up to London or avail myself of the twice-weekly bus that was provided to take us on uninspiring shopping-trips to Didcot. We acquired a small and ancient car, which, together with the meagre ration of petrol of that time, made the occasional trip to Oxford or Newbury possible. Later, when the ration was increased, we were able to travel by road to Manchester to see my parents. It was a disastrous vehicle, continually breaking down, but it did go on all four wheels most of the time - once one fell off just outside Banbury - and even conveyed us, by some extraordinary miracle, as far as Switzerland on our first post-war trip to Europe the following year.
Just as in Montreal, life back in Britain took a bit of getting used to, but during those early months of my first sojourn at Harwell, and within the walls of that inelegant ``semi'', I was destined to meet some of the people with whom I have had the most important relationships of my life. At the time, though, I had not the slightest idea how some of these friendships would develop.
The community at AERE was, in the main, a young one. Most of the people of my own age were as yet unmarried, and the rooms in Ridgeway House were full of youthful scientists bursting with excitement and hope for the future of the new venture. They poured in from the Chalk River establishment in Canada in droves. There were Australians and New Zealanders getting the necessary experience before returning to set up projects in their own countries. Among these was an inordinately lovable and funny little man with a face like a prize-fighter and a healthy appetite for beer called Charles Watson-Munro. He subsequently became the first leader of the Australian atomic energy research team. Already occupying a prefab was his friend, an intrepid, pint-sized, yet handsome young physicist who witnessed many of the tests in the South Pacific, Ernest Titterton, who was to become Professor of Nuclear Physics at the Australian National University in Canberra where he was knighted. Then, too, there were numerous new recruits who had not been employed abroad. They came from other establishments in England or straight from University. The motley assortment of accommodation on offer was rapidly filling up with talented people, many of whom were to distinguish themselves both in nuclear experiments and in leadership. Nevertheless, whether resident or not, everyone in the scientific community tended to converge on and meet informally in Ridgeway House, the only place in our community for social gatherings of any but the smallest kind.
This double-winged, two-story building had a triple-arched portico in front, large, reverberating public rooms, and two long wings of bed-sitting-rooms. There seemed to be miles of highly polished brown linoleum corridor simply inviting one to see how far it was possible to slide. The furniture was angular, institutional and uninviting. Outside, the creeper that had survived attack by the camouflage paint was flourishing, and a wide, stately drive separated the imposing entrance from a well-tended sports-field suitable for gentlemanly games of cricket and the occasional village fair.
The undisputed monarch in charge of arrangements in this building, the allocation of rooms and the provision of amenities, was a portly lady with a plummy accent and ill-fitting false teeth. We called her ``Battleaxe''. She gave instantaneous priority to the senior personnel in her domain, often to the detriment of the junior staff. She let it be known that she had graduated in mathematics from Girton, which she seemed to think gave her special authority to pontificate about what constituted a suitable request. It was rumoured that when a newly arrived young engineer complained that he could not read by the light from his bed-side lamp, she did not take him seriously. ``I don't know what you're making such a fuss about. All my Principal Scientific Officers seem perfectly satisfied'', she said dismissively. On another occasion, she refused a room to a girl from a provincial university because she had reserved it for one ``with a first from Cambridge''. She was a snob of the first order, endowed with all the instincts of a boarding-house landlady.
This attitude tended to fuel an obsession with rank that seemed to have been inherited with the bricks and mortar. There were men from the Ministry of Works - builders, surveyors and artisans in duffle-coats, seconded to Harwell from the shop-floor - who were charged with the logistics of installing the endless supply of items of equipment needed, from steel-girders to nuts and bolts. They thronged the bar at Icknield House, formerly the sergeant's mess, played snooker and shot rabbits on the Downs to supplement their meat ration. They kept their distance from the scientific staff, sometimes treating them, and more particularly their wives, with amused contempt.
There were those, already housed and settled into their jobs, who could rightly be described as ``characters''. There was a bearded, erudite gentleman living in No. 1 South Drive, who was so obsessed with making things that he kept a lathe in his drawing-room. He thought nothing of lashing together a refrigerator when it was impossible to buy one.
The newly-appointed librarian was a jolly and boisterous middle-aged spinster who happened to live in a nearby village. After parking her vintage car, she would gallop through the mud wearing an enormous pair of sea-boots, booming in an authoritarian baritone at anyone she wanted to have a few minutes discussion with. A graduate of Imperial College, femininity was not her most outstanding characteristic, and she addressed her colleagues by surname alone. She referred to herself simply as ``Gosset''. It would have been rather absurd to use her first name. Without foresight, she had been christened ``Kitty''.
There was another lady with a commanding presence, also grey- haired, called Katherine Williams. She had a soft, precise way of speaking and had just taken up the position of Principal Medical Officer. ``I'm not a real doctor'', she would point out with the modesty born of confidence. ``Most of my colleagues are; they have PhD's''. Her house was the only ``prefab'' to stand on its own, as if to emphasize that despite its tenant's self-effacing manner her position was unique and unassailable.
Although the countryside in which we found ourselves was green, and our supply of clean, fresh air infinite, the atmosphere within the confines of AERE was rather similar to what one reads about Hill Stations in the days of the Indian Army, suffocating and foetid. We were isolated and thrown together. An odd assortment of people in a remote place, somewhat cut off from contact with neighbouring villages and towns because of immediate post-war shortages of fuel and vehicles. When, in early 1948 the petrol ration was temporarily and briefly suspended, some of those who did not already own bicycles acquired them and started to wobble precariously about the site. If we were not to die of boredom, we had to get to know each other and pool our talents for entertainment. At the very beginning, Battleaxe graciously arranged the occasional ``beer night'' in Ridgeway House and a little later a bar was opened. A few amateur jazz musicians enabled us to hold dances there. Some of us looked forward to these rather pathetic social events as if they were gala evenings; such was the distance between us and a normal social life.
We organized an orchestra, a choir and a dramatic society. Two people who gave an enthusiastic lead to these ventures were Henry and Eva Arnold. Henry, a dapper and handsome retired Wing Commander, had been appointed Security Officer. He had behind him an outstandingly interesting life, packed with adventure, which ranged from being shot down while serving with the Royal Flying Corps in the First World War, to working for military intelligence in the second. He once had to disarm a Czech spy. It was his duty to be on friendly terms with everyone, and he did it with panache. He enjoyed a drink, could tell a hilarious anecdote and was a superb mimic. Although I sometimes thought him a bit naive, this may well have been part of the act. For example, despite his talents as an amateur actor, as a 'cellist, and with a sketch book, he appeared not to have the very slightest comprehension of any language except English. He was a generation older than most of us, but his extra years manifested themselves only in a way that was pleasing and helpful to the young. If advice were given it was kindly and gently wrapped up, but usually he behaved like a convivial equal. His manner was out-going and easy. No-one could ever have disliked him. He and I remained on friendly terms until his death in his ninetieth year. Eva was plump, jolly and practical. She had a knack of opening her china-blue eyes particularly wide in feigned surprise whenever any insensitive blunderer made a statement concerning the confidential areas of Henry's job. I am reasonably sure that she knew a great deal about it and was her husband's confidante in such matters, but cleverly she made sure that no-one knew for certain.
There was an air of forced gaiety prevalent at this time. I can describe it only as an epidemic of post-war hysteria. Although compared with many, the period of hostilities had not involved me in much danger or tragedy, I was one of those young women whose wild oats had been sown too sparsely due to the limitations of war, parental control and an early marriage. Now we were making up for it. If we could lay our hands on alcohol we tended to drink it with undue haste and relish; sexual adventures were common, and scandal was our daily diet. When we had petrol those of us with cars had to be careful, and not only when driving them. They were instantly recognizable, and everyone could see whose was parked outside which house and for how long. In such a small, closely-packed community, was it surprising that we almost knew what was in our neighbours' dustbins? I do not mean to imply that everyone was indulging in an on-going orgy. Many lived sober and responsible lives, but there were some of us who were indulging in an extension of what to-day would be regarded merely as normal youthful exuberance. When some young Australians succeeded in removing the roof of a ``prefab'' at a party, they were accorded the sort of accolade that is usually reserved for those winning a marathon rather than opprobrium. There were many such escapades. There were romances, engagements and estrangements. Some were to endure, some to end. As in other aspects of our lives, there were to be many successes and more than a few failures.
A large hole was dug in the foundations of one of the hangars in preparation for the construction of the Graphite Low Energy Experimental Pile, or GLEEP, as we came to know the first nuclear reactor to be constructed outside North America. The great and the wise came from all over the world to look at it and to watch as the construction work started. Kowarski and Halban came, Max Born from Edinburgh, Francois Perrin from France. Anyone would have thought that they were gazing at some newly uncovered Roman mosaic. It looked excessively dull to me.
Much of the work on the site came into the ``classified'' or secret category. For this it was necessary for Henry Arnold to organize the erection of that type of high fence which consisted of concrete uprights, bent over at the top and connected with barbed wire that one sees so frequently at government establishments nowadays. It looked forbidding, and served to emphasize the feeling that our environment was abnormal. Once in place, nobody could get into the working area except through one of the police-controlled gates, where a little cardboard pass, bearing a photograph of its holder, had to be shown. Young Peter, at four, distinguished himself by slipping through one of these entry points on his tricycle under cover of a large lorry whose driver was being questioned by the constable on duty. He was busily pedalling round the administrative block for some time before being spotted. He also rode it into Ridgeway House and down the labyrinthine corridors. Poor Battleaxe was not amused.
Among those to arrive before us were the Skinners, last seen in Berkeley. Herbert, as head of the General Physics Division and Deputy Director, was in charge of research until the arrival of John Cockcroft. He and Erna were warm-hearted, hospitable and tolerant. In their house, which was one of the larger of the officers' quarters, I was to meet many interesting, famous and sometimes infamous people. I not only witnessed, but took part in dramas which have since assumed historical significance.
I became devoted to the Skinners. Erna I found particularly fascinating. Then in her early forties, she had spent much of her life in inter-war Berlin. Although Jewish, she had come to this country, not as a refugee, but as a student in the very early thirties. She could rightly be described as a ``Bohemian'', and typical of the pre-Nazi intelligentsia of Central Europe. She had a large, cosmopolitan circle of friends: actors, writers and artists. Although rapidly putting on weight, she was an exciting and good-looking woman. She craved the attention of men and usually got it. She was amusing and easily amused. It is hardly surprising that she disliked her new surroundings, but unfortunately she suffered from a phobic neurosis which caused her to panic severely when left alone. However, Herbert's private income from the family shoe firm of Lily and Skinner made it easy for them to employ a succession of maids and companions as well as running two cars. When there was no-one in the house with Erna I was frequently called upon. I never minded. It was fun to be part of her coterie, who had such disdain for the conventional. Herbert, though basically an establishment figure, regarded them all with a smiling detachment. Erna frequently drank copiously, and sometimes I felt delectably naughty when I joined her. Years later, after her death, her daughter, who grew up to be an abstemious and responsible career woman as well as a dedicated wife and mother, presented me with half a case of whisky from her mother's flat. I have often thought of how amused Erna would have been at this fitting memorial.
Through the Skinners we were to get to know the Peierls family. Rudi I had met briefly in New York. He was quiet and unassuming, but invariably ready to make a joke or laugh at one. He would come from Birmingham where he was Professor of Mathematical Physics, to stay with them, bringing his Russian-born wife, Genia, a resourceful, larger-than-life woman, whose friendship I was to value immensely in years to come. She was, and remained, one of the most resourceful people I have ever met. She was good at giving advice and finding solutions to problems great and small. In spite of this, she had never been able to eradicate from her piercing voice the obvious evidence of her mother-tongue. When the Skinners' roasting pan proved too small for a Christmas turkey, she produced one of those large tins designed to hold seven pounds of biscuits, and ordered ``Rudi, create roaster'', and Rudi, armed with tin-opener, produced one that was adequate. The bird with its trimmings and gravy, were safely contained in the ingenious makeshift.
They had two children of thirteen and eleven, and Genia at thirty-nine was pregnant with the first of her two post-war daughters, ``my second generation,'' as she described them. The Peierls were a complementary influence during their visits to the Skinner household. Rudi's gentle competence, and Genia's inspirational ideas for entertaining, brought much pleasure and merriment to all who came into contact with them.
The largest house, standing not far from the Skinners, was eventually occupied by the Cockcroft family. The contrast between the two households was comic to the onlooker. Under Elizabeth Cockcroft's prudent, north country management, economy was the watch-word and temperance the creed. Her family of five children and their nanny all knew what was expected of them. From where I lived I could see the lights being carefully switched off when a room was vacated in their home, whereas a carefree blaze from every window lit up the house nearby. At Skinner parties, a varied supply of drink, acquired through influential contacts in London, flowed freely and abundantly. The Cockcrofts were practically tee-totallers, but served a little sherry or wine as a compromise at theirs. The two families maintained a truce-like, diplomatic friendship.
There is no doubt that John Cockcroft was a man of immense stature and the highest moral standards, but he and his wife never sat in judgement over any of us. To the best of my knowledge no-one ever got admonished for wild behaviour unless it affected their work. He was interested solely in getting the best out of his mostly young research team. Much later, I was told on excellent authority that it was his policy to back to the hilt those he considered to be winners. The ``also-rans'' were left to reach their ceiling and remain on his staff in positions commensurate with their limitations or, if they sought employment elsewhere, no effort was made to retain them. Whether or not he was always correct in his judgement I cannot say, but I know of several instances where people were puzzled and hurt by his failure to communicate with them more frankly.
One of the first to call on me while I was unpacking my china and glass and arranging it in the inadequate cupboards was Klaus Fuchs. As a bachelor, he had taken a room in Ridgeway House and for a while remained Battleaxe's most senior resident. He arrived shortly after we did, and was to be Oscar's immediate superior as Head of the Theoretical Physics Division. His personality seemed to have developed since our first brief meeting in New York, and he had acquired something of an aura of authority. The sun of New Mexico, which he had recently left, had burnished his pallid complexion, and he was wearing rather more stylish, lighter-coloured clothes, and they suited him. Apart from these obvious, visible differences, he was as strange, enigmatic and withdrawn as before. Whatever was thought about him later on, I found him overwhelmingly charming and gentle at the time, betraying nothing of the opinionated conceit that his colleagues noticed. Immaculate and gaunt, there was something uncannily remote about him. Later on I was to see a lot of him, and we formed a close friendship, but I seldom knew him to relax completely. Although a deft and competent dancer, he never let himself go at any of our high-spirited parties, remaining always the smiling onlooker. He kept up with the rest of us, drink by drink, and smoking countless cigarettes, but I never saw him lose an ounce of his formidable self-control. In the years during which I knew him, I could never describe his manners as being anything other than perfect.
I gradually formed the opinion that the suffering his family had endured during Hitler's reign of terror may have been but a part of his story, and that some other great sorrow must have left him scarred to the limit of his endurance. In spite of his immensely detached personality, he smiled at me in the way that men do when attracted by a young woman, and I in turn was fascinated by him. His very aloofness represented something of a challenge. I was determined to get to know him better and to try to crack the veneer he presented to the world.
Another young man who was eventually to become a devoted friend was a promising young experimentalist, just one year older than I, called Hans Kronberger. He was to become famous for his work on isotope separation, one of the processes that lie at the heart of atomic energy. Ultimately he was appointed Member for Reactors of the Atomic Energy Authority. He was another fugitive, a refugee from Austria where he had lost his mother and sister in the Nazi holocaust. His father had survived the notorious Theresienstadt concentration camp, thanks to having had an unusually robust constitution and indomitable courage. While these dreadful tragedies had been taking place, Hans had suffered the additional indignity of internment in Australia. I had no idea that the Sophoclean tragedy in his personal life was just beginning, and to what an extent I was later to be involved in it. At the time we met, he was like a playful puppy, bravely putting the misfortunes of the immediate past behind him. He had just taken receipt of a vast consignment of valuable family furniture that had been shipped from Linz: antique baroque escritoires, chiffoniers, tables and an immense clock with a long broad case. The last needed much doing to it, and he removed the weights, the cords and the mechanism. He called me into his room in Ridgeway House to look at it one day. Typically, with his usual sense of the ridiculous, he had put a pile of books inside the cabinet, climbed in, closed the door, and substituted his own face for the ornate, gilded dial. Over this, and many other pranks, we dissolved into uncontrollable laughter. He was irrepressible and juvenile, and we enjoyed the same type of joke. We would shriek with giggles over something quite idiotic, frequently a mistranslation of a German sentence, and hardly ever remotely funny to anyone but ourselves. After the first heady impact, when we annoyed Battleaxe by sliding down the linoleum corridors of Ridgeway House, and racing each other across the Downs, we calmed down and maintained a sort of companionship that was to prove closer than any outside our immediate families.
Otto Robert Frisch, famous for having demonstrated the process of fission in collaboration with his celebrated aunt, Professor Lise Meitner, arrived to lead the Nuclear Physics Division. Newly returned from Los Alamos too, he was anxious to play chamber music. An excellent pianist, and a mediocre violinist, he liked everyone to do things his way. No doubt, this was because he grew up an only child, surrounded by doting women. Lise Meitner was but one of his numerous female relatives. Genia Peierls was heard to remark in her characteristically ``basic'' English: ``Anywhere you put pin on map, there Frisch has aunt.'' He was a bachelor, already well past forty, but destined to marry some years later. Although predictably cosseted in Ridgeway House, he would frequently take refuge in the home of Egon Bretscher, who had worked with him in Los Alamos. This tall and mournful-looking Swiss was to take charge of the Chemistry Division. He seemed to be dogged by difficulties, and something was always going wrong in his ménage. On arrival at Harwell, the Bretscher family consisted of two parents and three children. They demanded two prefabs, but as they produced two more children in quick succession, and carried a certain seniority, they were allocated an officer's house as soon as one became available. When that proved too small, they were given priority to occupy the next of the largest ones as soon as it had been vacated. Egon too was a competent pianist, but he seldom took part in the joint musical efforts. He was an incorrigible hypochondriac, and his frequent migraines, if not unwillingness to ``mix'', prevented his participation. His children, to whom he was almost abnormally devoted, were friends with mine, and occasionally he would call at our house. He did have a sense of humour, but it was always tinged with sarcasm and ``Schadenfreude'', that untranslatable German word for glee over the disasters afflicting others.
I always loved to entertain, and one evening it was arranged that a string trio would play to a group of friends in my house. This would consist of Oscar, Otto Robert Frisch and a physicist in his twenties who was reputed to be a competent 'cellist. Brian Flowers was tall, dark and shy, but his playing was outstanding. He was one of the young crowd who had until recently been working at Chalk River. My only previous contact with him had been in an argument concerning the rights and wrongs of families from the surrounding houses eating their meals in Ridgeway House. As Chairman of the Residents' Committee he had objected on the grounds that it was ``home'' for the single staff, and should not be invaded by those who could well cook for themselves. Although I laughed at him and called him ``childish'', pointing out that we had paid for our food, I realized that the stubborn set of his chin, and the tight-lipped severity, belied an immense sense of humour, and that in spite of his iron determination to prove his point and win the argument, he was laughing with me. Klaus Fuchs opposed his opinions, and used his position in the establishment to give all the residents what Erna Skinner described as an ``evangelistic sermon'' on democratic principles. Despite this, and the predictable backing of Battleaxe for the more senior resident, Flowers made his point. Clearly, he was a man with a built-in gift of authority.
However, on the evening in question I hardly noticed him. My attention was elsewhere as I listened to the music, and my mind was fixed on the plight of another. What I shall never forget was that during the course of one of the pieces, what it was I cannot remember, Klaus had turned deathly white. Sweat was trickling down his face, and I feared that he was going to faint. It is not easy to cross a small room crowded with people and instruments to offer help, and I watched helplessly, scared that he would topple to the ground, land on the players or impale himself on a music-stand. As soon as the performers finished I opened the door. He made a polite and unhurried departure, thanking me for my hospitality. It was the first instance of many I was to witness of his incredible will-power.
With the onset of our first winter in Harwell we realized that our house was in a poor state of repair. An alternative would soon be available on the attractive and skilfully arranged estate that was being planned for scientific staff in the nearby market town of Abingdon. We, with two children, could qualify to rent one of the four-bedroomed houses that were being built on what had once been the large garden surrounding the recently demolished Fitzharries House, an imposing mansion that had outlived its usefulness. There were big trees, a pond and plenty of grass. It looked inviting, and I should have been more than happy to stake our claim, but Oscar was not keen on moving there. Although I yearned for an adequate and permanent home, he preferred to maintain a minimal dwelling base and to spend as much time as possible in nomadic style, travelling in the country and visiting the various naturist centres.
I continued to attempt to keep the house we were living in warm and dry despite what seemed like insuperable obstacles, but finally, when our living-room was flooded in early 1947, Oscar applied for a prefab. I didn't like the idea of another move to what could at best be an extremely short-term solution to the problem of finding somewhere to live; besides, this sort of thing was becoming monotonous. I felt sure that it would not be good for the children. Had I known how many more times I should have to uproot my family, settle the boys in a new environment, and how little damage it did them, I need not have bothered. The future was to bring me worries of far greater magnitude.
peter 2011-07-25
