Roy Haslett RIP

Kyt · Nov 11, 2008

Obituary: Roy Haslett | From the Guardian | The Guardian

My father, Roy Haslett, who has died aged 87, was a scientist whose wartime research into radar helped protect allied convoys. He later developed acoustic technology during the cold war and contributed to navigational instrument patents and to scientific journals.

It was clear from a young age that Roy was a scientist. He built his own radios and filled a room of his parents' home with equipment. His exploits featured in the local Portsmouth newspaper and when the time came to leave school he went to Reading University to read physics. While there, he met Margaret, to whom he would be happily married for more than 65 years. After graduating Roy joined the RAF and, as a radar officer, was sent to India.

Radar was not then fully understood, and when his unit was switched off for maintenance, Roy did his own experiments. He knew that sometimes radar signals propagated farther than the normal range and it was thought that weather had some part to play. Sometimes he could bounce signals off the coast of Africa, thousands of miles away. His staff took temperature readings up the radar masts and he was able to prove that temperature inversion was the cause. With this knowledge, his modifications were adopted widely in India, and helped to protect allied convoys in the Indian Ocean.

After the war Roy worked for Kelvin Hughes, in Ilford, a company famous for its navigational instruments. When the company became part of Smiths Industries it turned to government defence contracts for new work. As chief scientist, Roy was responsible for contracts that must have played some part in the cold war.

He served on the committee of the Institute of Acoustics, wrote many scientific papers and the company took out patents based on his work, some of which led to Smiths being granted the Queen's Award to Industry.

In later years, he discovered a passion for the history and archaeology of the Mediterranean. As Margaret's health failed in the opening years of this decade, Roy had to learn new skills of caring, which he took on with characteristic stoicism. She died last year.

When he himself became ill, he found solace during long hours of kidney dialysis in the classical music he had first heard listening to 78s in India, but now played on an mp3 player.

He is survived by me, and by his granddaughter, Julia.
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Antipodean Andy · Nov 11, 2008

A very clever man. RIP.

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Roy Haslett RIP

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