SCRAP METAL
THE CHINA MAIL, SATURDAY, OCTOBER
Mug Mokera
1952.
GILES
Page By
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THE BRAIN OF DR. W. G. PENNEY
In a little 'semi-detached' a father talks of Britain's super-scientist
whose £2,000,000 'baby'
went off yesterday
This is a story to rouse the ambition of every British youngster and overy British parant; the_story of a sorgeant-major's son whoso education, from council school on, never cost a farthing-"It just hadn't got to”—and who is now rated the best mind in the world on atom and hydrogen bomb research.
His name: Dr. W, G. (Bill) Ponney, family mon who designed Britain's atom bomb, the mechanism that fires it, the oquipment that will test it, and whose finger yesterday set going the whole £2,000,000 tost on Monte Bolló Island, off North-West Australia.
His story is told by two man on whom the head- lines have never fallen, his father and a small-town schoolmaster who was in class with Bill Ponnoy.
W
HILE Bill Penney, All the way across the chubby-cheeked world security shielded
genius in rumpled young Penney: at Singapore sports - cont and
home at Norwood in the know.. I couldn't afford London suburbs.
it."
Probably no one Briton And what were was ever attended by so scholarships? much security care in peacetime, not even a Prime Minister.
the
Well, after a faltering start he didn't get much schooling for his first twelve NO ‘ATOMS' HERE born out in Gibraltar, then years what with his being
the war and his father being posted here and there abroad
ANYBODY can approach
afterwards he had a few
was no selenilst at these, oh no!
the home of the elder
months at Colchester Classmate Clenaghen · Penney-though few do; a Technical College then, few cronies, perhaps, come when the old man retired a werk in for games, too, but he to sit in sight of the sea and year later, he went to the x was all hell-for-leather with the river and ships and talk technical school at Sheer- him. about the tomatoes or about old times.
But never about atoms.
The old man, one-time
ness.
BEAT THE LOT:
"He was thin then, and a bit short-sighted, but he really wal- Joped a ball. He never-blow up the lab, but he did beat up the best boxer in the school."
Apparatus he was, too, which
shacks, sits on barren but armed troops guarded his Regular soldier, armament so - well
50-seater sergeant-major in Ordmore, AT 18 he took a Royal Always clever at contriving Well guarded Monte lodging, and the Bello to fre off his plane m which he and one is 72, bright blus, of eye Scholarship-top in all £2,000,000 "baby," his other passenger, a guarded- still, and steeped in England in Maths, and father tends window-box' missiles expert, arrived; at memories of the war--1914 physics in an exam, they tomatoes in a semi-detached Darwin the. very airport of course-and of Gibraltar didn't want him to sit for, at Sheerness, where the was sealed off. Even now, a and of Egypt and of all since he hadn't even been to Thames meets the sen. guard keeps an eye on his those places where soldiers a secondary school.
soldiered.
FATHER
SON
Tomatoes on his window-sil
Wont all, his
That took him to the As for this Monte Bello Imperial College of Science business and what his son and Technology in London. is un to.
"I don't Then-Bachelor of Science know. never have and don't, in two years instead of the want to. And I never ask usual four. That was I don't have to worry about saying___too. much, do I?"
After that a Common- wealth Fund Scholarship to Wisconsin, U.S.A.-M.A. în All he will say about his Physics. Another scholar- son's present-day activity ship--to Cambridge. Doctor
is this: "He comes down to see me regularly and plays a round of golf on the local course, but eeling, that's what he likes best. Always catching eels, he is, and never knows what to do with them when he's got 'em. Eels!"
+
GOOD AT SUMS
NOW what gives a man like
old Sar'major "Penney, just a man among millions, a son like Dr Penney, a man in millions?
No good asking the old man. All the brow-stroking all the rifling through of thinning hair cannot prompt an answer to that one.
Portrait of the scientist as a young boy.
of Philosophy, Cambridge. Doctor of Philosophy, Lon- don... Doctor of Science, London. Fellow of the Royal Society. Meantime: golf. handicap eight.
Just one interjection All right. What lifts him the original idea was to put the then. from unlettered young Penney into obscurity to the counsels of Naval dockyards where his State? What makes him a father worked before and brain to be guarded by men. after the Army, but, his and coveted by nations? headmaster, Mr A. H. Boll.. kept him on as a pald
Well, one thing his father laboratory assistant at 16 does know: it was not in- and scotched that-and now fluence and it was not back. let his classmate A. · A. Ing-not money backing. . Clenaghen round off the
atory.
He remembers: "Some- one in El Kantara; that's -In" Egypt, of course, once said
he was clever, good at sums,
you know,"
MR
A FIGHTER
CLENAGHEN who now He remembers, too-with teaches "Perincy's: subjects," much more relish"He was maths and physics, remembors good at football and ^a that when the hertimaster kept mighty fast bowler.
him on yourg Penney studied at night-school in the same elon- “A good lad, he was. His rooms where he worked during career never cost me the day. farthing, except for a year long on he knew him; of two's keep Won all his he says, Penney worked before scholarships. Had to, you breakfast and lipe at liight, He
· And
"M
A letter
reminds us that when the Ameri- cans made an atom test at Bikini the contrapiton he made out of petrol tins measured the blast when their complicated, costly machinery failed. The Americans gave him a medal for that.
The Americans would also like to have Dr Penney on their pay-
roll. Which brings us to
THE QUESTION
• DOET Britain pay Penney
and the back-room boys "like him enough? ¦ Riis title to Chict Superintendent, of - High- Explo sizes-Research ; his salary from the Ministry of Supply-€2,820.
The Unites Stiles - would readily pay him three times, eben four times, that.
ffis father saps :'" Why should he go, he's English, isn't he; and he's not ambitious about money."
„Butyds that thug normer 20
from Brazil*
ROLEX was bought about twelve years ago. I have worn it constantly ever since.
"Once, in the Brazilian jungle, a most amazing thing happened. We were travelling up the river Jequitinhonha, in the State of Bahia, by canoe. My wrist caught between the paddle and the edge of the canoe, the strap broke, and the watch disappeared into the flood. Search proved useless and I was obliged to continue, with a heavy heart. Two months later, travelling down the same river, I' stopped for the night several miles below the point where I had lost my Rolex, on a little beach where another camp had been established. That night, sitting round the fire, we began talking. Asked how things were going, an old man said, "Very. badly, sir. We have been panning for two weeks, and we have only found mosquitos. (Little diamonds of no value.) 'Pedro dos Santos thought he'd found, a large piece yesterday, but it was only a watch; he said, spitting with digust.
"My heart stopped, and I asked to see the find, and scornfully my dear Rolex was hurled at me across the fire. Immediately I asked Pedro if he would sell it to me. He consented, willingly, ...thinking that a watch that had been in the water. was worth nothing. The winder doesn't even work, he said. With a broad grin at the idiocy of this foreigner he pocketed five milreis. The laugh was on the other side of his face when a few minutes later, I put it back on my wrist and set it going!"
This is an extract from a letter written to tha Rolex Watch company by a customer, Mr. Victor L. Bondi, now of Geneva. We think it speaks for itself. There are few hardships a Rolex watch cannot undergo; that delicate mechanism is so made, so constructed, so well protected by the Oyster case.. This, anyway, is the true story of what happened to one Rolex Oyster. ·
# Mfr. Bandit's original letter van buiuspected at the off the Rolex Watch Company. ‚18 vur du Mareði, Genius, Switzerland,
BOOTHS INEST
RY GIN
ONDON
BEARS OUR SHIHd Th
In all things
there is only ONE BEST
Choose BOOTHS
Sola Distributor 2
DRY GIN
CILMAN & COMPANY LIMIT
-H ̈ONCK ON.C
....we were travelling up the elver Jequitinhonba, in the State of Bablage by canot¡, +3
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New adding this final touch of grace to all. Rolex Oysters to the mu slimmer Oyster cast.
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The Rolex Red Seal to a further proof-of. perfection-itina sign thar the Swiss Government have tewed the watch and awarded it one of their coveted Official Timing Certificates.
TURBOŁEK WATCHI CÓMKAMY LIMITED, GENEVA
Hale again first "with" "thi wew Phantom Crave-water)roof, wA when pulled out for hand-setting,
ROLEX
A landmark in the history of ¿tima measurement-