Tuning in…
Tuning in…
Castaway
1 appearance
First woman President of the Royal Academy of Engineering, expert in combustion and acoustics, and pioneer of the Silent Aircraft Initiative.
On the island
Eight records
I really enjoy the music. I live in the country and I drive into work in an open top car when the weather permits, the roof is down. And I love to feel the sun and sing along to this piece.
Choir of Sidney Sussex College, Cambridge
It's quite magical in a winter's evening to go across one of the courts in college, see the lights on in the chapel, and hear the choir rehearsing.
Prélude à l'après-midi d'un faune
I just love his music. I love the purity of it, the fact that there's no extraneous notes.
Joan Sutherland, Marilyn Horne, Luciano Pavarotti, Martti Talvela
One an early date was we went to hear Verdi's Requiem in King's College Chapel.
Symphony No. 4Favourite
I just think it's really beautiful piece of music.
In conversation
Presenter asks
1:08Is your mind always whizzing with how things work?
I'm not sure about always fizzing with how things work, but I have always been intrigued about how certain things work, and I suppose as a youngster there was an enthusiasm to take things apart, to discover what went on inside. It didn't mean my skills were always sufficient to make them work again afterwards, but I learnt by doing that.
Presenter asks
4:04Why do you think the UK has so few women choosing to make their life in engineering?
Yes, you're right. We're quite atypical in the low proportion of women working as professional engineers in this country. I think it goes back actually to our highly selective school education, where from sixteen to eighteen we have youngsters just studying three subjects. Girls do very well at GCSE science. But a small number, only twenty per cent, continue physics on into the sixth form. And physics and maths are the sort of standard entry to do a degree in engineering. Some universities are opening other routes in and I think that's important. But I am concerned that young women in particular are giving up physics and probably making these decisions when they're fourteen or fifteen about what they're going to study in the sixth form. And they're doing that before they probably have thought about the breadth of jobs that keeping physics going in the sixth form and potentially thinking about engineering, the huge variety of jobs that that can lead to.
Presenter asks
The keepsakes
The book
Collected Papers of Sir James Lighthill
Sir James Lighthill
James Lighthill was the founder of the field of aeroacoustics, which I work in. These are four volumes... And in those early papers, it's what one can do with mathematics and really a pen and paper... to work out some of the most fundamental equations... This could well take me into research in a new area.
The luxury
Paper, pencils, and watercolour supplies
I need the paper and pencils right. ... if you'd let me, I'd like to have a range of papers ... I'd like also to be able to dabble in watercolour. So if I could just expand the stretch of papers to include some watercolour blocks and have some paint as well as pens, I'd be really pleased.
Did you really take the bike apart? You really took it apart?
Yes, this was the big boy from next door who was doing some maintenance on his bike, and so I had mine upside down and ... My problem was that I got all the ball bearings out of the wheel hub and it was just impossible to put back together. ... It did get reassembled. I think my dad probably helped put it back together again.
Presenter asks
10:33Did your parents encourage you in all of this?
They certainly didn't say stop it. The bike was done in the garden, so at least there wasn't oil all over the house. ... They were very encouraging.
Presenter asks
14:39Was applying to Cambridge just a matter of course?
Well, no, my school didn't have a history of having sent anyone, I think, to Cambridge. And my headmistress suggested that I should apply. And I wasn't sure that I wanted to. I was going to study maths. I was afraid that if I just said no to my headmistress she'd think I wasn't very ambitious, and I knew she'd be writing a reference for me.
Presenter asks
24:30When did you learn to fly? Why did you learn to fly?
I learnt to fly in my early thirties. I think I've always been fascinated by flight. Just the thought that these heavier than air machines can take off. I actually understand the maths, but it's still just an amazing thing. ... I got my private pilot's license, we bought a share of a very slow and stable aircraft and went everywhere that one could reasonably go from Cambridge in a few hours in that aircraft. And then later on I bought a share of a faster aircraft. ... I got an extra licence that let me fly through cloud. And when you're actually flying the aircraft and it's been grey and dismal on the ground and you go up through the clouds and the clouds break and you're in brilliant sunshine, that song will remind me of that moment.
“I have always been intrigued about how certain things work, and I suppose as a youngster there was an enthusiasm to take things apart, to discover what went on inside.”
“My problem was that I got all the ball bearings out of the wheel hub and it was just impossible to put back together.”
“It was on a single circuit, so if you removed one bulb, they all went out, just playing around and working out what the electricity, how it was flowing, what it was doing.”
“It wasn't very comfortable. But what, I took some comfort from actually, was that although the shareholders did not like the outcome of the remuneration, they did vote overwhelmingly for my reappointment.”
“I would certainly want to have a fire going and lighting and shelter. I wouldn't be looking to put my feet up, but I suspect that your desert island wouldn't allow that anyway.”