So long, Sid - by Colin White
There’s one aspect of the festive season which becomes increasingly evident as we get older, and it’s an issue that younger readers may not appreciate. It concerns the Christmas cards that we do not receive. Instead, we receive notes, usually arriving in January and sent by their family or friends, informing you of their loved ones’ sad demise. Last year we had three such communiques. One of them was from Sid’s wife.
I first met Sid in 1977. I had applied for a post-graduate course in Microwave Engineering, and he was the Course Leader and he interviewed me. I was nervous. Microwave science was my favourite subject but, let's be honest, I was not, academically speaking, the sharpest electron in the particle physics toolbox. I was happy connecting the test equipment together, carrying out measurements and interpreting the results, but this was a post-graduate degree I was aspiring to. They would surely ask me about Bessel functions and their application to circular waveguide, or heaven-forfend, quantum buckets and their influence on the design of IMPATT diodes. Worse still, if the interrogation did happen to crawl down that particular dank miry alley, they were bound to ask me to solve the Schrodinger Equation in three dimensions.
Sid didn't. He asked me what I most enjoyed about the subject, and why. He then asked what my experiences had been up to that point and what I wanted to do in the way of a future career. I rambled on, describing my previous weekend spent inside a three-metre parabolic dish atop a frozen hill in Kent. I was armed with large bottle of Rustkill in an attempt to improve the dish’s reflective efficiency and performance. In my other hand, I held a can of WD40 to spray around the gear trains, hopefully to improve their smooth-running as the great bowl was swung in the direction of some satellite or other. I told him about my late nights, creeping around different University departments’ laboratories, attempting to steal (yes, let’s not beat about the bush, STEAL) test equipment they wouldn’t miss (possibly), so I could complete my experimental laboratory set-up. When Sid managed to get a word in, it was only to ask me where I planned to stay when the course started.
And that was that. Easy! Of course, at the time I was twenty-one years old, while Sid was sixty...or ninety...or something. Well, anyway he was old; in much the same way as I probably considered anyone over forty to be ancient.
The course began with a series of formal academic lectures (plus practicals and exams), followed by an extended period working in industry (oh, and a small matter of a fifty-thousand-word theses). Of all the lectures, Sid's were the most practical. His theoretical and mathematical elements were grounded in concrete reality and verified by experimental laboratory work. I loved them. Then, when it came to my industrial placement, Sid, who knew I had an ongoing long-term relationship with a ‘Devon Maid’ (and nearly half a century on, I still have), suggested I worked at a company called Standard Telephone and Cables (STC) in Paignton, Devon. I was soon to learn that he himself had worked there during the war, and, it seems, he had left quite an impression.
During my student time at STC, he visited me to monitor my progress, both on the workbench and in my developing thesis (Cassagrain antennas, since you asked). I proudly showed him the SHF communication kit I was working on. It was umbilically connected to a vast range of very expensive test equipment designed to monitor its performance. There was some sort of fault with the circuit and I explained all to him. But he was not alone. He had been on site for some time and had garnered a small, but enthusiastic entourage. Three or four of his ex-war-time cronies had heard of his visitation and were in-toe, eager to exchange news of their intervening post-war years.
However, the thought of a young lad with a microwave circuit board problem was too much for the old boys and they all delved in, eager to 'sort me out'. Frank suggested tweaking a variable resistor, here; Dave, replacing a thermistor, there. But it was Arthur who pinpointed the fault.
“Shove an Avo on the bias of that thur tranny. What does ee read?”. “Right then, it's that bleddy PIN diode innit. They'z always blowin.”
Arthur was raised and lived on an arable farm at the back of Paignton. A popular character, possibly not so much for his electronic fault-finding prowess, but more likely by virtue of his side-line in cider production. For those who have not heard of an 'Avo', they were a simple but robust (virtually indestructible, actually) measuring meter. They were manufactured in their tens of thousands during the Second World War and, at the time of this story, were available in every army surplus store for under a tenner. That would be less than the cost of the actual cables that connected all the other tens of thousands of pounds worth of fault-finding test equipment I had attached to my circuit in an effort to locate the fault.
These boys were old school. They knew stuff you could never learn in any form of structured learning environment. I swear, if they were around today, they would have no trouble locating the source of dark matter and energy, given an Avo, a soldering iron and a pair of pin-nosed pliers. I felt honoured and privileged to be under their tutelage.
One more small anecdote, if I may. When Sid had seen enough of my project, he asked me if I knew if a certain Doug Savage was around. “Do you mean the “Doug Savage” as in, the Site Manager, Doug Savage?”, I asked tentatively. He said he expected so. I explained that this man; this manager of four thousand people of whom I was one of the youngest and least experienced; lived on the third floor of this two-storey building. That is, there was quite literally a tower over the rather magnificent Art Deco entrance foyer, containing only his office suite and the offices of his immediate supporting entourage. I suggested we first phone his secretary.
He dismissed that idea with a laugh and a wave of his hand. “Blow that! Doug'll see me. Where's the stairs?”
So, as he marched up to see 'God', I traipsed nervously behind. Few employees, even the long-term, established figures, will have made it beyond the bottom of those haloed stairs. Sid ignored the secretary at the gate and knocked on the great beach double-doors to his office. Not waiting for a reply, he strode right in. I, meekly followed behind, expecting to receive my permanent notice of dismissal in my next internal mail delivery. 'God' looked up from his billiard table-sized desk and expleted a noise that sounded like a cross between a squeal and a growl. He arose and walked around the desk, and they both hugged with such ferocity I thought all four of their legs would simultaneously leave the ground.
The pair then sat on an expansive sofa overlooking the Bay, while I, for a moment forgotten, sat on a small upright chair in the corner of the office-tower, hoping to remain invisible. There then followed a series of vignettes of microwave engineering during the war years. Stories, I suspect, from when they were about my age; how long-defective communication systems had been terrorised into action; how, conversely, other functional equipment had been sabotaged or vandalised for reasons best known (and probably, kept) to themselves.
One salutary tale I remember well, described the novel way in which, during the war, the radio engineers would stay warm during the winter months. They would stand in front of the rotating, transmitting radar antennas. It was, they thought, a most efficient heater, even though they did notice the onset of tinnitus following particularly prolonged irradiation. Today, we know this is due to the internal heating of the brain, causes expansion which presses on the ear canal; much as it would if you shoved your head in a microwave oven. And just like shoving your head in a microwave oven, tinnitus might well the least of your problems.
They also reported activities involving large dead spiders, cotton thread, sticky tape and young secretaries. Then, there was the old, smoked pilchards strapped around a hot thermionic Klystron oscillator trick. To say the pair acted like aspartame-overdosed hyperactive kids at a birthday party would be doing children an awful injustice.
The time came for us to leave and, as Sid and I left the office, the Site Manager put his arm around my shoulder and, bringing his mouth close to my ear, he whispered, “Not a word. NOT A BLOODY WORD. You understand?” And now, nearly half a century on, for the first time I convey this tale to you, dear reader. But I am still afraid: VERY afraid.
I continued for more than ten further, happy and instructive years at STC, until Sid informed me of his impending retirement. You've probably guessed where this tale goes next, so to keep it brief; yes, I replaced him at University and continued teaching his courses that I enjoyed so much myself as a student. The devices were, of course, updated; less emphasise on heated-filament valves and more on semiconductor devices; the blackboards were gone, replaced by white boards, OHPs, and in later years, visualisers.
Thirty years on and it was my turn to go. Today, Sid's course is being taught by one of my protégées; a student I supervised in the 80's. Of course, thermionic devices have virtually disappeared, although I sometimes wonder if they possess the resilience and fortitude of vinyl discs. Today, they’ve been replaced by semiconductor and, increasingly, microwave integrated circuit components. And white boards and OHPs have, of course, been usurped by the PCs and PowerPoint.
But, as I reminisce over the legacy this jovial, quietly spoken gentleman left us, I'd like to believe there are some characteristics which have sustained through the generations. We microwave physicists are not, in general, bleeding-edge academic theoreticians. We have a more practical engineering inclination, and yet are still dependent on a solid knowledge of applied mathematics. Above all, we know when to use a sweep frequency oscillator and spectrum analyser, and when to use the present-day equivalent of an Avo, and soldering iron.
Oh, and if one of our colleagues should happen to play a practical joke, we know how to keep our mouths shut: for the most part.
So long Sid, and thanks.
