Life as a chemist in the second world war
Margaret Appleton shares the recollections of her father Robert Hopkins, a chemist at the De Havilland Aircraft Company
Many chemists did vital work in the second world war, often in challenging circumstances. My father, Robert Hopkins, who died recently aged 100, was one of them. As a flavour of the times, here is a small selection from his reminiscences.
I was nineteen and halfway through a course in chemistry at the Regent Street Polytechnic in London when war broke out. The course was speeded up by increasing the number of lectures at the expense of practical work, and the final exams took place in summer 1940. Practical exams were in a one storey wooden building in South Kensington, and we were periodically chivvied into a more solid place when the exam observer thought planes were rather too close. Gas pressure for the Bunsen burner was low and work was difficult even when you knew what to do.
On receiving my call up papers I was allowed to take up a job in the laboratory at the De Havilland Aircraft Company in Hatfield. The lab in January 1941 was very small and consisted of the aircraft division metallurgist (‘The Boss’), an apprentice and me. The lab steadily increased in size and was staffed by people with varying skills or no skill at all. My closest colleague was also a chemist and we were not allowed to cross the main road together in case we were both knocked down.
The work we did was varied. Process control included heat treatment, electroplating and surface treatment, and we got to know some of the process operators quite well. One, a perfect gentleman who addressed me as ‘Mister Robert’, had been a Rolls-Royce chauffeur before the war, and still used wire cutters marked RR. Another man, an ex-miner, handled a wide variety of unpleasant treatment baths with care and efficiency. I have a cherished memory of the tool hardener sitting on a metal drum pouring out his coffee. The drum held a quarter of a ton of cyanide. Health and Safety at work?