Professor Heinz Wolff

Professor Heinz Wolff

Sue Lawley's castaway this week is the scientist Professor Heinz Wolff. He came to public attention when he presented the television programme The Great Egg Race, in which he challenged people to conquer engineering problems with a rubber band, a pencil and a pickled onion. In the 1970s while designing aids for disabled people, he devised the phrase 'Tools for Living' to describe his work. After all, as he points out, we all use tools to cope with our environment, whether as an astronaut, a diver or an elderly person.

It was his father who encouraged his enthusiasm for invention, sharing his Sunday afternoons experimenting with his chemistry set, or organising talks from physicists who had to hide their surprise at assessing the ideas of a six-year-old child. In the 80s he founded the Institute for Bioengineering at Brunel University. There he continued his inventions devising for example, a box for experimenting in outer space, a voice machine for people who can't speak and a safety system for deep-sea divers.

[Taken from the original programme material for this archive edition of Desert Island Discs]

Favourite track: The Man I Love by Joan Wolff Book: Collection of Landscape Pictures (with book) Luxury: A Collection Of Landscape Pictures

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Avsnitt(124)

Sir Andrew Lloyd Webber

Sir Andrew Lloyd Webber

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31 Dec 199936min

Michael Crawford

Michael Crawford

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Michael Nyman

Michael Nyman

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Oz Clarke

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Sir Richard Sykes

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5 Dec 199938min

Warren Mitchell

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Sue Lawley's guest this week is Warren Mitchell. Arthur Miller praised his portrayal of Willie Loman in Death of a Salesman. His King Lear and Shylock won critical acclaim. But he will always be remem...

28 Nov 199937min

Clarissa Dickson Wright

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Sue Lawley's guest this week is Clarissa Dickson Wright.Born into a home where caviar was more common than fish paste, she has always been surrounded by fine food. Yet she came to cooking as a profess...

21 Nov 199935min

William Gibson

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This week the castaway on Desert Island Discs is William Gibson. Long before the existence of the Internet, he wrote about 'cyberspace', a boundless world reached only through computers. External spac...

19 Nov 199934min

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