Wacky prof gave me my marching orders

HOW sad I was to hear of the death of Professor Heinz Wolff, the scientist and TV personality, who I met in 1961. At that time, I was one of a platoon of Paras undergoing rigorous heat trials to see how quickly troops could acclimatise to the scorching desert heat of Aden. The trials lasted about 30 days, consisting of ten days of exercise in a sweat box in London, followed immediately by a flight out to Aden, carrying out rigorous exercise within hours of arriving there. This lasted about a week before we returned to Britain for cooling down exercises. It was a fascinating experience in which Heinz Wolff was one of a number of doctors and scientists conducting the experiment for the military. One task was to monitor our heartbeats while we were marching in the intense heat. For this, he used a crude type of electro-cardiograph which consisted of two beakers of water attached to a frame on the back of a Land Rover. We inserted two fingers of our left hand in one beaker and two fingers of our right hand in the other beaker. The resultant electric charge was then monitored on a machine. Rather crude, but a clever forerunner of the modern ECG machine, which I have since used regularly as I have heart trouble. The scientists and doctors were happy and amenable characters with excellent scientific and medical knowledge. One of them had the unusual privilege of being the first man to play a grand piano at the British scientific base at the South Pole. The heat trials were an unforgettable experience that I hope provided useful information for the training of troops for service in hot climates. The memories are still as clear in my mind as if it were yesterday.

G. M. Cosford, Sheffield.