Exceeding my Brief by Barbara Hosking

Author:Barbara Hosking [Barbara Hosking]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781785903564
Publisher: Biteback Publishing
Published: 2017-03-17T04:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

It was exhilarating to move from a red-brick fortress in Curzon Street to post-war Millbank Tower. I was taken up to the eighth floor and shown into an open-plan office where five men sat at large desks. I, too, was given a large desk and comfortable chair, but no telephone. A slip-up somewhere, I was told. ‘You’ll have one tomorrow … can’t have a press officer without a phone.’ I had a wonderful view over the Thames to the west.

My welcome was unenthusiastic. It was the first time there had been a woman in the press office, and they told me later they were worried that they would have to mind their speech and behaviour. I also learnt that not everyone approved of the civil service’s equal pay policy. I saw with satisfaction that my male colleagues were all about my age, and later learnt that three were family men with young children, one was married with no children and one was divorced and single.

One winter’s day when we were preparing to leave, there was a superb sunset over the river. ‘Oh, look at that sunset,’ I exclaimed. ‘Come over here, it really is stunning.’ Grudgingly, one came, and gradually the others joined us to admire a beautiful ending to the day. Thus, slowly, they became friendly although they still behaved in a very macho way when they were all together.

The work of the Ministry of Technology was divided up between us. One had Concorde, another had satellites and so forth. I was given to the hovercraft project. The senior information officer and the principal gave me background reading and arranged for my first visit to the research station near Cowes on the Isle of Wight. I was also told the story of how the project had begun with a radio engineer, boat builder and inventor named Christopher Cockerell.

Cockerell wanted to create enough energy to lift objects off the ground, and had been experimenting with a weight-bearing cushion of air for fifteen years. He had then applied for a grant to continue his experiments and the civil servant who was responsible for approving this grant invited him in to give a demonstration. They met in a small committee room and sat on a table while a green Lyons coffee tin glided over the carpet under their feet. At that stage it was not at all clear how this power pack could be applied commercially, but the civil servant, smitten as everyone was by the idea of this weird invention, allocated sufficient money for Christopher Cockerell to continue with its development. By the time I arrived at MinTech, a hovercraft was bounding above the waves near the Isle of Wight.

Once more I was enjoying being a tiny part of British scientific life. I accompanied the press to the National Physical Laboratory at Teddington, where many of our great achievements have begun. I saw the wind tunnels where the stability of the New York World Trade Center was tested. It was

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