Invention: A Life

Inflation, meanwhile, had risen to 16 percent in 1974, peaking at 24 percent the following year. Interest rates also peaked at 24 percent, making it difficult to pay back even the interest on loans. This was hardly the time to think of borrowing money and setting up as an entrepreneur in the manufacturing sector, especially since there was no help

Unemployment had already topped a million, the highest it had been since the 1930s, and in January 1974 Britain was officially in recession for the first time since the end of the Second World War. There were other major changes to life in Britain in these uncertain years. The currency was decimalized and, after years of trying—and a 356–224 vote i

Back then there were no incentives to start a business of your own while venture capital was nonexistent. This was long before Silicon Valley start-ups. It was quite the opposite, with investors earning big money from interest on their capital and unwilling to risk it in manufacturing.

For me, though, risk has long been an antidote to inertia. I felt that then. As an artist, Deirdre appreciated what a “project” or idea was about.

In 1974, with two young children, substantial debt, and a whopping mortgage, I stepped out of an exciting job, a company directorship, and a salary, into the unknown.

Deirdre and I had bought an old stone Cotswold farmhouse that meant the end of my long-distance commuting and the beginning of a lot of hard, physical work that helped spark my idea for an invention of my own, designed to make everyday life better. Better, that is, for someone like me restoring a house and having to negotiate paths and muddy tracks

“What fool will sell us his secrets?” Stalin asked. The Nene was quickly reverse-engineered by Vladimir Yakovlevich Klimov into the VK-5A for what became the highly effective swept-wing Mig-15 fighter U.S. pilots came up against in the Korean War. Today, we need a great degree of secrecy and security to protect our research and inventions. It seems

by 1939 the RAF may well have had a range of jet fighters and bombers that would have been a very serious challenge to Hitler’s military ambitions. The tragedy is that the Germans were able to catch up and put jet aircraft into production before the British. The double tragedy is that German engineers were able to study Whittle’s design freely. In

One of the most revolutionary of all technological inventions, the jet engine, had a rather rocky and painfully slow gestation. It was the invention of another of my heroes, Frank Whittle, whose sheer determination and perseverance have inspired me since even before I first set up on my own as a manufacturer.