Fly high, Amble’s spaceman
We recently learned of the death of Fred Taylor, Emeritus Professor and former Head of Atmospheric, Oceanic and Planetary Physics at Oxford University.
Professor Fred Taylor, Amble’s very own space man
Fred was born in Amble but set his sights on the stars. Eventually working with NASA at their Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Fred and his team developed instrumentation for planetary atmospheric research and mapping, which was used on missions to Venus and Mars.
On returning to Oxford in 1980, Fred subsequently became Halley Professor of Physics and received many more academic accolades and titles. He wrote a dozen books on atmospheric physics and the planets in our solar system.
Fred was born in Lindisfarne Road, his father William (Bill) hailed from a Hauxley fishing family and had been a joiner working for Carse, but was badly injured during the war and for a time the main family breadwinner was Fred’s mother Ena, who was a teacher. His Uncle Maurice ran the Co-op grocery on Queen Street.
When the family moved from Amble to Howick in 1949, Fred attended the Duke’s school in Alnwick, leaving for University at Liverpool, and then on to Jesus College Oxford where his prestigious career really took off.
After his retirement, Fred began writing his memoir, and in 2012 he returned to Amble where he spoke to the Ambler about his life. You can read the story via our website/Back Issues (Issue 78 p11) or via the link below:
Such a beautiful write up of a great son of Amble.
This caught my attention as I have a particular interest in Engineering. Sadly Engineers aren’t valued in the U.K. They start and continue being very very poorly paid for all their long years and hours of study, vast amount of homework, mind boggling engineering maths sometimes made worse by poor teaching, uni fees, digs and their mighty contribution to science and technology. I am not interested in any funding or grants, I Just want a very good salary for such an important profession. I read of starting salaries for Engineers on job websites as low as £8k full time, with the additional bonus of all training given.This is an insult to these young Engineers.