Physics is Fun Memoires of Richard Wilson Version of September 25th 2009

Andrée
Pief Panofsky invited me home to his house to stay till I found somewhere to live. I thus met Adèle and their five children. That weekend we all went to the beach west of La Honda, then came back a bit further south where we stopped at a restaurant and we all ate abalones. For me it was the first time. I got sick on the way back and we had to stop while I walked for 5 minutes. I thought that it was motion sickness because of the twisty roads. But a few years later when a similar event occurred I realized otherwise. I am allergic to the abalone that I had eaten. I found a room in Palo Alto very shortly, and then 2 graduate students invited me to share a house with them in Menlo Park - just across the golf course from Stanford. I joined a folk dance group and met another young research fellow in physics Sidney Drell. I decided for some reason to try to understand American Football and bought a set of tickets to the Stanford Home Games. In mid November Pief invited me to a small party at his house on the following Saturday - the day of the “Big Game” - Stanford vs. UC Berkeley (Cal). “Bring any finite number of girl friends.” Alas, it was too late to find a date for that important weekend so I turned up at Pief’s house that evening and asked the crucial question: “Is zero a finite number?”. “What do you mean,” Pief asked”. I explained. “If zero is not a finite number, my invitation is invalid”. Without actually venturing an opinion of whether zero is a finite number or not, I was allowed in, and Pief rushed to the kitchen and called to his sister-in-law: “Dizzy, (an abbreviation for her middle name Desirée) your boy friend has arrived. “ “Dizzy” was somewhat annoyed and stayed in the kitchen awhile. But when that beautiful young lady (now called Andrée by everyone except her sister) came out, she sat beside me on the floor and that was the beginning.
I can’t remember all the details of our “dates” in the next month. Some of the details I do remember will remain unrecorded. Andrée came up from Berkeley to join a folk dance party we had in Menlo Park I believe. On another occasion when she came to Stanford, and I planned to drive her home to Berkeley, the fog was so thick as I drove through Redwood City that I turned back and she slept in our house. Andrée in my bed and myself on the floor in the common living room. I drove her home and crashed my station wagon in Berkeley on the way back. Pief lent me his jeep for a week after that and then on Robert Burns birthday I took her folk dancing. I searched for some Scottish dancing but I could not find any so we went to the a little restaurant with a dance floor, which played tyrolean music: the “William Tell” in San Francisco. As she sat at the table in front of me between dances (mostly polkas) and flashed her eyes I was captivated for ever. I fell in love with her then and in the 58 years since I have fallen in love with her again and again and again.
Then came Christmas. On December 23rd I went to Pief’s house to wish them all a Merry Christmas, and that included Jesse DuMond, up from Pasadena to spend the holiday with his elder daughter (Adèle). This was the first time that I had met Jesse although I had heard of him as an undergraduate because he had written important papers on the “Least Squares Adjustment of Atomic Constants” with a student, Dr Richard Cohen. I admired his work then and since and always found Jesse to be a fine agreeable honorable man. I found out later, after I was married, that he had had a number of personal problems and his relationship with people, especially Andrée. But he had certainly mellowed and I always enjoyed being with him.
After greeting Jesse and Pief I took the night train to Los Angeles where I was collected by Linda and Peter Pauling with whose family I spent Christmas in their house in the foothills of Monrovia, east of Pasadena. The young Paulings and their young friends suggested we all go down to Tijuana, Mexico for the New Year. I explained I had left my passport behind. This probably would not, at that time have mattered. But more important I wanted to get back to Berkeley for the winter meeting of the American Physical Society. Roy Glauber was a young theoretical physicist who was a post-doc at Cal. Tech. He dropped by to see the Paulings and offered to drive me up to Berkeley and I accepted. I remember that Roy teased me on the way saying that there was a girl in Berkeley he wanted to see. In 2007 he still reminds me of that! But when I called Andrée, she was free that evening (December 27th) and we went to Spenger’s seafood restaurant which she thought was perhaps the best restaurant in Berkeley. But others thought it was the best restaurant too. Shortly another group of people arrived who had been at the APS meeting that afternoon. Leonard Schiff, the department Chairman at Stanford, Jesse DuMond, Pief and Adèle. They were as surprised to see us as we were surprised to see them. But we did not join them. We went back to “Dizzy’s” apartment which she shared with three other young ladies, and that evening we decided to get married. I stayed on their sofa that night. We were both believers in not waiting around. But in seaboard states in the US one must have a medical certificate for 3 days before a marriage license can be issued. Driving to Reno, Nevada was not possible because my car was being repaired. I never thought of renting a car! So we waited. But not for long.

The next morning Andrée went to work as usual, and I went to the APS meeting. At the coffee break Jesse and Pief arrived. I was waiting for them. I took Jesse aside and thinking it too old-fashioned to ask for his daughter’s hand in marriage, merely told him we were going to get married. After a few second’s pause he said “I am delighted” and went off to arrange a lunch party. Pief took me by the arm and said “Physics must go on” and led me into the next talk - on nucleon-nucleon scattering by Owen Chamberlain. It is a credit to Owen’s lecturing ability that I still remember his talk. The next week was like a dream. We had to get medical certificates to be sure we did not have venereal disease, a requirement in all seaboard states before we could get a marriage license. In principle we could have got married 3 days later - about New Years day. But Andrée’s father asked for a long enough wait that we could have at least a small wedding reception. I sent a telegram to my father Percy Wilson and brother Laurie announcing the wedding in 10 days. “I am marrying Andrée Desirée DuMond on January 5th. No use objecting.” It was the first they had heard of Andrée, but the fact that I had not written for well over a month now became clear. At the time my thoughts were of the old song:

“And when I told the how beautiful you are

they didn’t believe me, they didn’t believe me

Your eyes, your cheeks, your lips, your hair

are in a class beyond compare...”

They didn’t believe me until they met Andrée later that year in September.

We were married in his house on Saturday January 5th 1952 by a judge in Menlo Park, with Sidney Drell as my best man; and Pief and Adèle gave us a small wedding reception in their house. Then we set off to Yosemite Valley for a honeymoon. Alas, I had persuaded Andrée to try skiing and she borrowed some skis and bindings. But they were not safety bindings. And after ½ hour on the snow she fell and broke her leg. A bad start to married life that I do not recommend. My friends in Oxford, particularly Victor Round, said: “you should have tried the easy methods first.”

I am not sure of the exact words of the vows we made to each other in front of the Judge. Almost certainly it included: to love and to cherish, to have and to hold, in sickness and in health, till death do us part.” As noted elsewhere, Andree broke her leg on our honeymoon. We had not expected the sickness part to be tested so soon. Through the years it has been tested a lot. Andrée has never failed to keep her word when I am sick and I try to keep my word but I am not good at it. Andrée and I have had a few quarrels in our lives. I have been at fault in most of them. So I have learned to avoid actions which upset her. But I have been wrong in many other actions which have not caused a quarrel. That occurs far more times than is reasonable but Andrée puts up with it.
We found a small house at 1435 Tasso Street in Palo Alto which we both remember for the roses up the front and the fig tree in the garden. The members of Stanford Physics Department were very welcoming of Andrée.. I remember in particular Willis Lamb and Leonard Schiff. Andrée and I will always remember the little house and the roses which grew around the porch and the fig tree the garden. In retrospect I am appalled by my assumption that Andree could do anything in spite of her broken leg in a cast. Occasionally she bicycled and I remember her dancing - an action she repeated in February 2006 when she again had a broken ankle but nonetheless danced at the wedding in Morocco of a former graduate student Dr Hynd Hoya Bouhia. In the spring we took a weekend trip to Carmel. Although I had heard of course of morning sickness during pregnancy, it was my first knowledge of what it was like and it scared me. While eating breakfast at a café Andrée felt faint, got up and rushed out. The man in the flower store next door let her sit among the flowers where she recovered. When we returned we found that the café had kept our bacon and eggs warm.
One evening we were at this nice little house on Tasso Street a fire broke out around the corner. Not surprisingly for a country with wooden houses, firemen are excellent at responding in the USA. Better than peacetime England. A eucalyptus tree next to the house caught fire and crackled. The residents of the house were away and it was I that called the fire brigade. Within less than 5 minutes the fire engines had arrived from the station 1 ½ miles away on Embarcadero and the freeway.. The first engine was a tank truck. The driver- fireman jumped out of the truck having started his pump and immediately hosed the side of the house and tree. I helped him pull the heavy hose. Within a minute the fire was under control by this prompt action. By the end of the minute the following fire trucks had connected to the hydrants and were pouring water themselves. If the response had been a minute longer more eucalyptus trees would have caught fire and the fire would have extended from the side of the house into the body of the house itself. We also had a trip to Pasadena in April to see Andrée’s father and step-mother, in their house. I think we went down and back by train which was easy and comfortable in those days.

In September we set out to return to England. I jettisoned my bicycle, actually giving it to one of my nephews and also jettisoned some other belongings. Andrée jettisoned or put in storage a lot more. But we still had one ton of belongings that we packed and sent by truck to the pier at Oakland, whence to London and on by road to Oxford, as well as 400 pounds or so as forwarded baggage on the train to New York where we caught the “Queen Mary” to Southampton. A long train trip on the California Zephyr. Willis Lamb, Pief and Adèle came to the Niles railroad station across San Francisco bay to see us off. Pief had added a Sears and Roebuck catalogue to our carry on baggage in the hope of persuading us to come back. Was that the reason that we did return to the USA 3 years later? And to California for a couple of months in 1959? After a change at Chicago we went to Rochester to see my old friends and then to Rockland, Maine before going down to New York to catch the Queen Mary to England. To our surprise, on our first trip on deck we met our friends Eleanor and Margaret Milne who had been visiting their step brother and his family in New Jersey. I had met them while folk dancing in Oxford. I was talking their father’s course at the time on “Vector and Tensor Calculus” and one week he apologized for having given a wooden lecture. I did not know at the time but his wife, Eleanor and Margaret’s mother, had just committed suicide with post partem depression a month after the birth. Their father died of natural causes about 1951. Professor Milne was always a bit removed from ordinary social interactions but was very protective of his daughters. It transpired that Andrée had known Eleanor in school in Pasadena when Eleanor was evacuated to US during the war and stayed with the astronomer Theodore (Ted) and Miriam Dunham at Cal.Tech. Peter Lund had told the Milnes that we were coming so they were prepared to see us. Later showed us later a picture taken in 1943 or 1944 at their school in Pasadena. It showed Andrée and Eleanor had marked: “my best friend”. This saddened us a little because Andrée had little contact with the young Eleanor who was in a class below. But Andrée has always had thoughts for the lonely and troubled people of the world and that is one of the reasons I was, and am, attracted to her.

Headington, Binsey and the Scuttle
The Queen Mary docked at Southampton in the early evening of a mid September day. But customs and immigration officers had gone home. Laurie had come down to meet his new sister-in-law at the port, and he was allowed on board to welcome his new sister-in-law. I never forgot his kindness and helpfulness. He forgot it; but then he was always helpful and did not remember therefore any particular incident. We could have gotten off for the night but would have had to come back the next morning for customs and immigration.. We were not going up to London immediately, and I was being careful about unnecessary hotel bills, so we stayed on board one more night and caught the 9.30 am train to Oxford in the morning. Laurie went back to London by train. Of course we saw him again a couple of weeks later when we went up to London and Andrée was introduced to my father.
Arriving with our baggage at Tom Gate soon after noon we set out to find accommodation. We knew that such accommodation would not match our house at 1435 Tasso Street. Peter Lund had suggested Headington cottage at the top of Headington Hill where a couple of rooms were available. This was a “quaint“ cottage, the same in which Cecil Sharp had stayed on Christmas 1899 when he first saw Morris dancers, (which he had believed were extinct) but Andrée at once (correctly) vetoed the cottage as unpractical. My former tutor, Carl Collie, and his wife Mary put us up for one night. We were offered a 4th floor apartment with use of a basement kitchen in North Oxford, in the house of Dr De Mesquita. But we settled for a second floor room (and use of the inevitable basement kitchen) in Mrs Ogden’s house on Banbury Road. But in November we were rescued by Hans Halban who offered us temporary use, rent free of a flat (apartment) on the top of the farm house (Headington Farm) he owned in Forest Hill Arthur Christopher was born here on December 2nd 1953. In many ways this was equally or more impractical than some of the others. The flat was far from flat. We had to go up a wooden outside staircase in the back to a living room and small kitchen on the first floor, then another staircase to the bedroom on the top. All coal for the coal burning heating stove to be carried up the wooden steps which were icy on a few occasions that winter. I remember coming back from the lab one day to find a cold Andrée in tears. The coal fired stove in the living room was heated by anthracite coal which was under the stairs. There was another small pile of soft coal. Anyone brought up in England knew that to light the fire one starts with paper, then wood, then soft coal, finally getting the anthracite to burn. Andrée had tried directly from the paper to the anthracite. But Andrée learned and she was and is not a grumbler One tremendous advantage of this apartment was that there was a small apartment for Barbara and Victor Round under the farm house (and later after we had left Binsey, a small house). Barbara and Victor were both very helpful to Andrée. Barbara would look after Christopher if Andrée wanted to go out - and of course they have been friends ever since.
On the evening of December 1st we went to a little party held, I believe, by Elizabeth Wilson, Hans Halban’s secretary who I had dated a couple of times in 1950. It was in her very small apartment on the top floor of a house on Woodstock Road. I believe Margaret Chaundy was there as was Eleanor Milne and Ann Davis. As I remember it the girls got together and regaled Andrée with stories of all my faults. Andrée remembers that we drunk too much alcohol before bicycling back the 4 miles up Headington hill to our (temporary) home at Headington farm. Maybe the alcohol stimulated action. The next day Arthur Christopher was born. I called the midwife from Victor and Barbara’s apartment.. She was quick getting there but Christopher was born twenty minutes after she arrived. The midwife was the District Nurse, who had already brought some 450 children into the world. As was usual at the time I was set at once to boil water to keep me out of the way, but was summoned upstairs when the baby appeared. Andrée was happy and so was I. Andrée’s mother in Paris, had agreed to come over and help for a couple of weeks. So I telephoned her from Victor and Barbara’s apartment and she promptly flew to London, took the South Midland bus from outside the airport, at the Three Pigeon’s pub on the main road (A4) to St Ebbe’s where I met her and we took the bus up to Headington. 2 days later Andrée’s step father Jean Baptiste, arrived in full French Army uniform. We had given him detailed instructions but since he did not speak English, he asked at the airport how to find the place to catch the bus to Oxford. Instead of directing him to the Three Pigeons the helpful people at the airport sent him up to London where he caught a later bus to Oxford.
Many young couples think of a name for their child long before he or she is born, and sometimes before he or she is conceived. Maybe Andrée did, but I did not. Once I had thought about it I wanted my first child to be called Arthur, in honor of my late brother. Andrée liked the name Christopher. Christopher Arthur did not sound euphonious so we settled on Arthur Christopher. Some time later, Chris Heath pointed out indirectly that these were his names. We certainly did not deliberately choose Chris’ names and they were not consciously in my mind or Andrée’s, but obviously if I had not liked Chris Heath there would have been a mental block.
I had said to Andrée that although my income was only 400 ($1,800 with $4.2 to 1) a year, we would spend some accumulated savings till I got a proper job which paid more than a research lecturer. I was determined that we would not let our first wedding anniversary be short changed. We got a taxi, and took Christopher in his baby basket down to a baby sitter in south Oxford, and then to the Bear Inn at Woodstock. After a fine dinner we sat in the lounge for port and coffee and took a taxi back. The evening cost us 38 which was about one tenth of my annual salary. Many people thought we were crazy and extravagant But I have always felt it was worth it. I wanted and still want, Andrée to think that she is worth it.
Halban made clear that the apartment was just temporary. We set out to look for alternatives. Buying a house seemed best. We set ourselves a limit of 2,100. We saw several “between wars” houses at this price, but they had “outside” bathrooms. We saw a flyer about what seemed an attractive house with a garden in Marston for 1,800. . The real estate agent told us that it was “an interesting subject for modernization”. One wall was crumbling. We forgot the house, but remember the phrase to this day. I began to raise the limit and offered 2,300 for an interesting cottage in North Hinksey, for which the asking price was 2,900, but this offer was not accepted. But then Christ Church helped.
Binsey is a small village, 12 houses and cottages, a pub (Perch Inn), a church (with Alice’s treacle well in the church yard) on the river 1 ½ miles NW of Oxford. It was bought by Christ Church in the 14th century to provide milk from its two farms. Peter and Heather Lund already were living in “The Old School House” a 4- 5 room stone house with a garden and orchard facing the village green on which cows than grazed. Manor Farm cottage, half way between the old school house and the pub (the Perch Inn), faced the green on one side, the farmyard on the other and had a common wall with the barn. It had already been modernized in 1939 when the ladder to the first floor was replaced by a staircase and running water, from a well with a windmill driven pump was provided to an outside tap to supplement the rainwater butt. The rent was 3 shillings and sixpence a week. Now Christ Church modernized it again for us. The bullpen at the back of the house was converted into a scullery and bathroom with running water. A coal fired combined hot water heater and cooking (Raeburn) stove was installed in the kitchen. To allow for 5% repayment of capital the rent went up to 1 a week. We had to pay for internal painting and I bought a coal fired enclosed efficient heating stove for the living room. This was a 50 investment that we left behind.
Andrée was never alone in Binsey. In the back the windows of the cottage looked onto the farmyard often full of cows. The front of the cottage faced straight onto the green by which came every cow twice a day. So we tried to enclose a little patch and make a path around it. I asked the college treasurer, a Mr Grey, whether it was possible to enclose the patch. He came and looked at it and was non committal. Andrée realized before I did what he meant. “Go ahead and do it, but I will deny responsibility.” No one in the village objected and the enclosure is there 56 years later. We were luckier that Heather and Peter Lund. They left the front door open one day and a cow came past and walked through to the back, leaving a calling card on the way. On another occasion the farm cat came through our “scullery” window and tried to get out. It was unable to locate the window again and bounced back and forth between the sink and the bathtub. I finally picked him up and took him out of the back door. I did not succeed until the cat had given me a couple of bites which went down to the bone. So I went to the Radcliffe Infirmary again for a tetanus shot. On another occasion Christopher got hold of the bottle of baby aspirin and had swallowed 40 tablets before Andrée found out what had happened. We took him to the infirmary to get his stomach pumped before there was any serious damage.
In many ways the life in Binsey was idyllic. I could bicycle across the river on a footbridge to the lab. But the dampness of this village by the river was bad for Andrée’s health so in 1954 we looked elsewhere. The most attractive of the possibilities was a solid 4 room stone Georgian house in Upper Heyford. This is 15 miles north of Oxford, but the wrong side of Oxford from Harwell and with an infrequent bus to Oxford. Our increasing prosperity might have diminished these difficulties for my professional life. The 1 acre property stretched down to the river Cherwell and there was a magnificent view across the valley. There were fishing and shooting rights on then river - but these did not influence my decision! The price of 3,000 then seemed reasonable as our income was about to go to 600 per year.. As we were mulling this over, professional considerations led me to accept in January 1955 the offer from Harvard.
Heather Lund took Andrée under her wing and taught her many of the features of how to live in England. She bought goods in the old cattle market next to the railway station. These included vegetables, cups and saucers. The life in this English village had interesting features. Everyone seemed to know everything that went on and people helped but did not interfere. One day when I was off at Harwell, Andrée was unwell and stayed indoors. It was either Heather or the lady in the smaller cottage the other side of the farm, who noticed that Christopher was not outside in his “pram”. She came around, and without being asked, washed the baby and cleaned the house. We still have a water color painted by Reverend Eva, a retired clergyman in the village. The day after we returned in summer 1953 from Europe the local policeman on his bicycle asked: “How was France?” We were worried that the cows walked immediately in front of the cottage. We tried to stop this and I enclosed a small area which became a little garden. I made a new alternate path around the garden, We did this slowly with full discussion in the pub. That enclosure still remains. Having no garden, I also put a clothes line from the cottage across the Green to a telephone pole with a pulley to haul the clothes in. One day a group of American servicemen came to drink at the pub. England has always had mixed feelings about American soldiers. Although the wartime criticism of Americans, “They are over paid, over sexed, and over here” was muted, it was hard for young 18 year olds in a different culture.. They did not always behave well. At closing time, 2 pm, the Americans went on drinking, in their car, from bottles and threw the empties out of the window. They were met by an angry beautiful young American, in shorts and a halter top, who told them in her American accent, “Get out and pick up your trash”. They meekly did so. That evening everyone in the village knew what had happened and without any specific comment the attitude to Andrée in the pub subtly changed. Andrée has since mused that the older people in the village, particularly the retired Reverend Eva, disapproved of her Californian style summer wear. No one said anything directly about that either before or after this incident. Indeed as we left in September 1955, one of the regulars asked us to go around for “one last drink”. One then sat down next to us and forgetting that Andrée was American, said “Do you really want to go to America? It is such a terrible place”. Reverend Eva painted a water color of the village so that we would remember Binsey. It still hangs in a prominent location in our house.
In spring 1953 I bought a small Austin Van. I would have had to pay a 66% purchase tax on a car, but there was a much smaller tax on a commercial van. I had windows put in and arranged some seating in the back. The lab paid me for moving myself and students to the experiments in Harwell. Our first trip in this was in April to the Lake District where Sandy and Marion offered us the use of a small flat above their house for a week. I had thought of detouring past Bradford on the way back to see my grandfather so hat he could see Christopher. I regret that we did not make the detour for he died a few months later. In summer 1953 we took a month’s holiday in Europe. One was only allowed to take 40 in currency at that time. We first stayed with Meme and Jean Baptiste in Rue Clauzel, Paris. We took a short trip to Chartres and Blois. Among other places we stayed at a little family hotel 7 km east of Blois called “Auberge de Medici” that we found in the Guide Michelin. It opened onto a large garden which went down to the river Loire. We played a little on the bank of the river before dinner. The food was excellent, and although it took 3 hours for the whole meal to be served, 2 ½ year old Christopher was patient and seemed to enjoy the meal too. It was firstly at Blois, and then at a couple of Chataux between Blois and Tours that we were shown the “first spiral staircase in France”. We saw the “first spiral staircase in France” at several other places since.
We then left Christopher with them and spent three weeks camping. We went to the Dolomites in the Italian Alps because we were told that they were always dry. We went up a small peak the first day and then the clouds came in. . We raced own the mountain path reaching the car just as the rain came down in torrents and then headed south to get out of it. When it got dark we camped by the roadside. My US Army surplus tent had a built in groundsheet. But the tent leaked and we ended up trying to sleep in a few inches of water. On to Venice and Mestre, Florence, Pisa, the coast west of Genoa, and up through Turin and up the St Bernard Pass.

I suspect that it was here that I made a mistake of drinking water from a waterfall fed (unknown to me) by a stream with sheep further up. After climbing (walking on the path 4,000 feet up to a pass) the next day I was sick. We headed west and at a campsite by the lake in Lausanne realized that my fever was 102 or so. Although at the campsite we saw the first bikini bathing suits I was too sick to appreciate them or the beauties inside them. We decided not to seek a doctor in Switzerland, of which Hans Motz had told us discouraging stories, but to head post haste for Paris. Andrée drove even though she only had a British learner permit. We got to the French border and found there was a general strike in France. We gave a lift to priest and a boy scout. Then one event happened where Andrée showed extraordinary driving skill. Driving along a 2 lane road at 50 mph was a “camion” (truck) in the other direction. Then another truck pulled out into our lane and overtook the first one completely ignoring us. Andrée promptly pulled over on to the grass verge and we bounced to a halt. It all happened too fast to be frightened. Andrée and I remember this to this day. Andrée swore. Then she apologized to the priest who replied, in French of course, “it was indeed a difficult moment”.

Andrée remembers that I was determined to behave normally although I was sick. In such circumstances I can often concentrate and accomplish something. But it s not always the most sensible thing to accomplish!. Ford had recommended oil changes every 500 miles. It was close to that. So although I was sick and probably had a fever, I insisted on getting under the car to drain, and then replace the oil! We got to Paris and I was put to bed. The next day Jean Baptiste got 2 young doctors of the French Army to come around and they prescribed something. But in the afternoon my fever went to 105 degrees Fahrenheit and I was losing consciousness. Fortunately a French Army colonel, summoned by Jean Baptiste, gave me the latest antibiotic and the fever went down in two days. I remember his comment on the prescription of the two young colleague’s: “Not very strong”. Because of the general strike many tourists were stranded and we did not want to give up our reservation on the (British) car ferry in Calais. Andrée was concerned about driving with an invalid license. The British embassy came to our rescue and gave her (illegally) a temporary license. We got back to Binsey in one day and I was well enough to do much of the driving. The Oxford police were very good. Andrée, an alien had by law to register with the police and report every 3 months. “Don’t bother to report,” the police said when we had arrived a year before. “We will know where you are.” Indeed they did. The morning after our return from France I saw the local “Bobby” on his bicycle in the village green. “How was your trip to France?” was his immediate friendly greeting.
I believe it was in summer 1954 that Geoffrey went to Canada. He came “home” to Merton Park before leaving and we went up to London in our little Austin Van to see him off. He was going by boat train to Liverpool and then to Montreal and on to Hamilton, Ontario. We set out in two cars; father’s Invicta with Laurie and Betty, and Andrée, Christopher and I with Geoffrey. We were somewhat late as we neared Euston Station and we had lost track of each other. I reached Euston at 9.50 and we rushed to the platform getting there at 10.00 just in time to see the Royal Scot, with its brand new diesel engine, go off on the opposite track. My father and Laurie arrived 5 minutes later. The boat train went at 10:10 with a steam engine. I have made many close connections since but none so nerve wracking. But of course it was Geoffrey’s close connection not ours.
Summer 1954 we had a vacation in the Isle of Wight. Our schedule was dominated by when we could get the car ferry to and from the island. Not able to travel on the short route, Portsmouth to Ryde, we went over Southampton to Cowes. We stayed at a guest house in Ventnor. It was interesting, but not exciting. One memorable day we went up to Cowes. The question arose, where to have lunch? It was market day. I saw some farmers walking across the square to a small hotel. That is where we had a fine meal of roast beef. When I asked for horseradish sauce, instead of complaining as most English waitresses did at the time, she said “of course.” The little railway line Ryde to Ventnor was still running. We went to look at it and saw the crew at the station opening up the front of the little tank engine and cleaning it. Even Christopher, 1 ½ years old, was interested. We could not get a reservation to leave the island on the Saturday that is the usual “change” day, so went to another little B and B place where we could also eat “lobster salad” for lunch. We asked for three! They were not used to the American idea of eating a whole lobster, or two, in a meal. We stayed in the Isle of Wight two weeks. We had to leave by driving to the western end of the island and caught a boat from Yarmouth to Lymington pier in the late afternoon and then drove back to Binsey.
In late August I went to a nuclear physics conference in Glasgow. I drove up with Roger Blin Stoyle and another physicist whose name I have forgotten. I presented our work. I was by that time impatient at not getting a more permanent position in Oxford. At the conference I told both Gregory Breit of Yale, Norman Ramsey of Harvard and Arthur Roberts of Rochester I was thinking of returning to America. Within 4 months I had offers of an Assistant Professorship from each of them. At the conference dinner Norman Ramsey was asked to give a short speech and asked us all to raise a toast to the Atomic Nucleus. Politicians could learn from it. It has its “independent particle” aspects, as well as its “collective” aspects and they seemed not to be in conflict. Jesse DuMond was at the Glasgow conference and he joined us as we drove back to Oxford. This time we stopped on the way back at a B and B at Shap, by the pass “Shap summit”, north of Kendal. Jesse and Louise then stayed with us for a couple of days in our little cottage. We had a little party in our little cottage and invited Lord Cherwell. He went to the farmhouse next door not believing that one of his scientists could live in such modest accommodations and not believing the advice of his chauffeur who knew better.
Michael Thomas Wilson was born in Binsey, at home in March 1955. I telephoned the midwife from Heather’s house at 4 am. She came around ½ hour later on her bicycle with a trainee assistant Strapped to the carrier on the back of the bicycle was some analgesic equipment. Although I was sent, as usual, to boil water to keep me out of the way during most of the labor I was permitted to see the actual birth and hold Andrée’s hand during this painful period.. At Hilda Chaundy’s suggestion we got a lady, Cara Alexander, up from Somerset, I believe, to help Andrée in the first month. Michael was not well and screamed a lot. Cara spent much of every night walking with him enabling Andrée to get sleep. In July I finished the “runs “ on my last experiment which was small angle scattering of polarized neutrons by lead to demonstrate the neutron electron interaction that Julian Schwinger had written about. I drove Andrée to the airport to take the children to Paris and went on a one week Morris tour (my last) in Gloucestershire. A week later I drove and joined Andrée in Paris. After a couple of days we took Christopher and Michael to the Loire valley and Brittany. Auberge de Medici was no longer as good as it had been two years before so we headed direct for a hotel Jean Baptiste recommened in Pont L’abbe in Brittany. The hotel there was good, but not suited for children so we headed a few miles south to Loctudy where we stayed several days; we looked at a small boat and drove over to a sandy beach. Then back to Paris and to England.
As we packed to go to America in September 1955 I obtained 6 wooden boxes from the lab. They had originally come from America in 1943 containing bomb sights and were among a lot of government surplus equipment - which we had learned to use in post war UK. We still have 4 of these boxes roughly 65 years from their first use! With a couple of other boxes professionally packed these were 1 ton of stuff being sent to Boston. I booked the boat from Tilbury, east of London, to Boston and got British Road Services to take them to Tilbury. Christopher and I packed them that afternoon. His idea was that we would fill the boxes and then complete the game by emptying them again. He screamed when I screwed down the top and he could not see his toys for another 3-4 weeks. Indeed moving was very hard on him. He had been beginning to talk, somewhat early. But it was another 6 months before he said much again. Leaving England was hard on both Andrée and myself. Andrée particularly was sad to leave Heather Lund, our neighbor. She had hoped to help with her third child Elizabeth who was born a couple of weeks later. But Andrée was able to get to Elizabeth’s wedding and we have remained friends as described later.
The ship with our boxes never docked at Boston after all; there was too little traffic. It unloaded at Baltimore, or Philadelphia I don’t remember which, and came up to Somerville by road. Since that road terminal was closer to Harvard (2 miles away compared to 9 miles) than the port, that was actually more convenient. This contrasts with the problems in 2006 when Andrée had some of her mother’s belongings shipped from France. In 2006 the road terminal was 40 miles SW of Boston. Not all changes are improvements.