Ian Holloway

The Reluctant Astronomer

I apologise if my article has a sad ring to it but I would like to record my feelings at the news of the death of the telescope maker David Sinden. I hope that my words will go some way in painting an accurate picture of an exceptional gentlemen, for those who never had the pleasure of his company.

I first came into contract with David while at school and he is one of the several people who, unknown to them, had a profound influence on me, both because of their personalities, which I chose to emulate, and on my career, which I choose to enjoy. We had, at school, a vast number of student run societies including one to encourage young scientists and it was with this society that we visited Grubb Parsons to see the development of a word first in telescope design. I fail to remember which telescope it was and if it was a mirror or a lens was being worked on with such precision. I do, however clearly remember the “gentlemen” who was our guide on this visit. His presence and enthusiasm were such that I truly can still recall the sound of his voice, some of what he had to say and mental images of the visit. David was probably the first person I had met who was both an expert in his field and yet modest to a fault.

Numbers on this visit were limited but we had enjoyed ourselves so much that the Chairman of the Society, who also steered me towards science but who did not realise his positive influence on Lower School pupils, arranged for David to come to school and speak to the society in our lecture room. Prep. was started very late that night and I doubt if Caesar would have been impressed with my lack of enthusiasm for Latin conjugations while I was thinking about telescopes. An outcome of David’s presentations was that we embarked on telescope building with more enthusiasm than was normal for the somewhat classical ideas of optics in an age when atomic physics was “cool”, to the degree that a chum embarked on the Herculean task of grinding a mirror from a block of glass. I recall the hours spent and the superbly finished silvered mirror being lifted from its wooden crate. David’s influence was to be seen in this project.

While studying and working away from the North East I heard, with disgust, of the demise of Grubb Parsons and I wondered how David and his expert colleagues had fared. I suspect that I would become annoyed if I was to hear the truth of this affair. Many years later I became intrigued by the stone observatory tower at Whitton, near Rothbury, and I began asking about the Men of the Cloth who were amateur astronomers. I still have to follow up the Rothbury research because I was diverted to the church at Tow Law were the Reverend Espin had been living and within the grounds of the vicarage he had an observatory. Espin understood the value of high quality optics and I enjoyed reading details of his telescopes. The story seemed to end I wondered where the telescopes currently were, A “long shot” question to the incumbent at Tow law provided the answer which gave me a huge thrill. The Reverend Driver told me that he understood that David Sinden had resorted the famous telescope!

A couple of years ago I decided to set up an optical device for which I needed a rectangle of front silvered glass. I showed that there was some mileage in the idea using inferior, but readily available resources, and I might have left things had it not been that through NASTRO I had learnt that David had a business at Stella Haugh Lane. The next is not difficult to guess. A telephone call to David resulted in an invitation to his workshop where I was presented with the silvered rectangle of glass. On asking the cost I was told that I was “just something from the waste bin”. David knew that the school Rocket Club did not have much in the way of financial resources but we did have enthusiastic students and in the same way as he had enthused me as a school pupil he was doing the same for pupils of the present. During our meeting David began a sentence about the effort needed to achieve a high quality product, which I was able to complete as I had heard it before, some 45 years before, during the visit I have mentioned earlier.

I hope that David knew something of how much he had influenced to the good the lives of people of his acquaintance.

It was impossible to be a reluctant astronomer having met David Sinden.

May your telescope be in focus and the sky clear!

Ian Holloway