You will know that my name is Volker
Heine, and this is a bit the story of my life.

I've been very lucky in many occasions.

I was born in Germany, in Hamburg, in
1930, and that was before Hitler came to power.

The situation in Germany was already
difficult, unstable.

The casualties in World War I were
tremendously high.

I mean, I remember reading or hearing
that at the beginning of World War I,

the British soldiers rode into the
battle on their horses.

And there were the German with machine
guns.

I mean, it was just slaughter.

I mean, they then learned quickly, but
it just shows the mind, the preparation,

how World War I was like a bombshell on
the world.

particularly Britain, because Britain
had been at peace since Napoleon, which

was about 1812 or something, and World
War I started in 1914.

So about 100 years.

So it was, and the casualties in World
War I were very high, I think, for all

countries, because of the machine guns
were new.

So Europe was unstable during those
years, and there was a great expression

also in the United States at the end of
the 1920s.

My parents met each other at high school
in the 1910s during World War I, and

then stayed, got married and stayed
together.

Then in the 1920s, I have two older
siblings, an older brother and an older

sister, and then a younger sister was
born in 1936.

Well, then, of course, Hitler came to
power in 1933, and everything then changed.

It was, it didn't directly affect me.

I was a child, I was born in 1930, so,
but it meant that I did leave and the

whole family left in 1939, 1938, 1939,
because it was getting dangerous to

I mean, the Nazis were very strong on
involving the youth.

And as a teenager, it was very important
to take part in those things so that my

elder brother and sister went to a
boarding school in Holland that it was

run by Quakers from the United States
and England.

the United Kingdom after World War I, to
try and bring at least the young people

together after World War I.

And then my elder brother and sister
were sent there because it was getting dangerous.

For secondary school, it was important
to take part in these Hitler youth activities.

And there's a story about my

elder brother coming home and saying,
oh, the teacher told us that time so and

so and so were hotters and so on.

Well, one of them was my grandfather on
the mother's side, and another one was I

met through them, and they were very
nice fellows.

Should I tell the teacher that she was
misinformed?

that would have been politically a huge
mistake and would have had all sorts of repercussions.

Diagonally opposite us we had the local
Nazi who sort of kept an eye on our district.

Every month you had to have a

You didn't have to, but everybody did.

It was expected.

And the party thing, you have a meal
cooked in one pot, and that was its

name, Eintopfglich.

And the money that you save, the party
member would come around and collect for

the party, not for the government, not
for the state.

This was part of life.

And so this gave them an opportunity
once a month to be on your doorstep and

check, I mean, just chat and so on, and
see how you were received and children

and so on.

So that was the degree of surveillance
that one had.

So after this story about my elder
brother asking this question, should I

tell the teacher?

He and my older sister, who was also at
secondary school, were sent off to this

Quaker boarding school in Holland.

It was fairly near the German border, as
it happened, that part of Holland, not

over in Amsterdam.

And they were very happy there.

It was a very nice school.

In fact,

My parents had been at a rather special
school.

German secondary education was very
militaristic still in World War I and

even beyond.

But they, so they met at this much more
liberal school.

It was a private liberal school.

My father's father was one of the school
committee running the school.

It was relatively small.

And some of those teachers from that
school, they lost their jobs when the

Nazis came in, but then they were
teaching at this school in Holland, this

Quaker school.

So there were these connections.

So I was also sent there, but that's a
slightly different story.

A lot of people, of course, were
emigrating.

And some countries like England and the
United States had already closed their

doors, said, we've taken enough Jewish
refugees.

I mean, our family are not Jewish, but
the political atmosphere was very different.

As I say, one of my grandfathers was a
minister in the government after World

War I for a while.

And yes, in fact, he was lucky that he
was out of Germany with his wife on

holiday in Italy.

And somebody who was in the know sent
him an urgent letter and said, don't

come back.

You're on the list to be arrested as
soon as you do.

Because he'd been a politician against
the Nazis.

And so he and

His wife lived in Switzerland for the
rest of their lives.

And I remember visiting them there.

But anyway, so my parents thought about
they should leave Germany too, like a

lot of other people were.

I mean, we were not Jewish, but just
political, the situation was untenable.
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00:09:02,8 --> 00:09:05,345
But by that time, countries had closed
their doors.

But New Zealand was still interested in

building up its population.

It was one and a half million only.

And so they got visas for going to New
Zealand.

But he was a lawyer by profession, but
he'd had, because of this

My other grandfather was in charge and
built up this series of pottery factories.

They were just small factories that he'd
bought up that had never got back onto

their feet after World War I.

I mean, just think of the difference in
tastes between what we would call the

whole Victorian taste and after World
War I, well, Picasso and all that.

And so a lot of these small factories,
there's a lovely, a good band of clay,

runs from Sweden through an island in
the north, in the sea there, and then

through Germany running southwards, a
bit west of Berlin, and then somewhere

down to the Lake Geneva.

And along this band of clay, good clay,
were

villages and little towns that each had
their little pottery business.

And it was grandfather on my mother's
side that towards the end of World War I

and just after World War I, these didn't
make it back onto their feet commercially.

And he bought them up very cheaply and
he built up a little empire

that way.

And my father was often the
troubleshooter for him when, I mean,

these were just little factories all
over the place.

And so father had been interested in
science.

His brother went into science and he
went into law, but he could, it was up

and touch and go whether he would follow
science or law.

as it happened, it was law that he
decided on, but he was still interested

in science.

And so the idea was to go to New
Zealand, but would there be a job for him?

I mean, he was a lawyer, and a lawyer is
not a job, you can move from one country

to another because the laws are
different, and you have to, and of

course, the clique of lawyers

I mean, they're very tightly controlled
and you'd have to start again at the

beginning of studying law in that
country.

Well, who would pay for that?

So the question was whether he could go
to New Zealand and find through this

general business experience and
something to do with the pottery

industry whether there would be a job
for him.

So they set off in 1939.

And this meant that I went to this
boarding school in Holland also.

Of course, I was aged 8 and a half, and
this was a secondary school.

But there were other families who were
in a somewhat similar situation,

particularly Jewish emigrants.

And so the school had a baby class as
well.

I'm not sure at what age it actually
started, but then it had a baby class

that I know, and I was the youngest in
the baby class.

But I could do arithmetic.

I was always good at that.

And so I was able to be with them and
move up into the mainstream of the

school in September in 1939.

So we all had visas for New Zealand.

And then there was also my younger
sister, who was age 3.

And she was also in Holland with the
governess to look after her.

So that we were all out of Germany.

I mean, they didn't expect a war to
start, obviously.

But you never knew.

And then it happened that father, as I
was saying, was sort of, he was the

legal and financial director of the
ceramics company of my grandfather, my

mother's father's side, who had died in
early 1930.
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00:13:54,234 --> 00:13:58,4
And then another uncle died in that
family.

Well, when an uncle died, he was one of
the directors of this ceramic company.

And then there had to be some changes,
of course.

And in particular, one of the brothers
was rather than Shark.

And the widow of the uncle who died
needed to be protected and so on.

So

father traveled back to Germany in the
summer of 1939.

It was possible to fly at that time
already, not very easily.

You went on a plane in the morning and
then flew and landed on a harbor.

So these were seaplanes.

And then you stayed in a hotel and the
next morning you took off for the next one.

So that was how he got back to Germany.

And he was just going to be there for
two weeks to tidy up the legal aspects

of the company and the change of the
directors and so on.

During those two weeks, the war started.

And so he was stuck there until 1947.

I guess it was 1947 when he then finally
got to New Zealand.

He couldn't come, the Allied Allies
didn't let people out immediately that

the war was finished, because then all
the Nazis would have disappeared.

Some of them, of course, had already got
out through Spain, and Spain was a

friend of the Nazis.

That was how it evaded being overrun
militarily.

But

What was I going to say?

Yes, so father was just back for two
weeks and got stuck in Germany then.

Well, then there were us four children
in Holland, including younger sister,

age 3.

But we had visas to go to New Zealand,
and then at the end of October we left.

to England and then to New Zealand, my
ship, of course.

Interestingly, the ship kept zigzagging.

This was to try and avoid torpedoes
because the submarine has to

expect where will the ship be exactly so
many minutes from now and then line

itself on that spot and so on.

And that's why the ships sort of
zigzagged along, etc.

This was part of crossing the ocean in
wartime.

Anyway, we got to Australia and then
from Australia to New Zealand.

But my mother was there in a hotel room

just had to get a cleaning job.

She, of course, wanted my younger
sister, who's three years old, nearly

four, I suppose, to stay with her
because, I mean, the other three older

ones, me and my older brother and
sister, we got sort of, not adopted, but

cared for by three different families.

But a three-year, four-year-old, it
would have to be an adoption, and that

would be the end as far as my mother was
concerned, and she just didn't want that.

And so she only sought jobs where she
could have young Viola with her living in.

Those jobs were not easy, especially
during the war then, and being an enemy

alien and

and so on.

I mean, having employing her, having her
living in with the child had sort of,

well, it made people ask questions
politically and so on.

So, but then she was lucky and a farmer,
his wife left him and they had children,

three children of similar age to my
sister Viola.

And so she had a job there as
housekeeper for this farmer and their family.

And I was very welcome there during my
school holidays.

I was cared for by a family in a
different city, Wanganui, and they had

four children of their own, and they
just added me to their four children.

And I had a very good time there.

I could

I could discuss a bit the life that I
had there.

I mean, the heating of the water in the
house was purely by wood.

Well, the climate was okay, warm-ish.

I mean, it was a bit cold in winter, but
the hot water daily.

And so it needed a lot of chopping of
wood for the hot water system.

And that was my job.

And we had one cow.
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00:19:26,566 --> 00:19:33,6
And so then at the end of the milking,
dad, that was Mr.
219
00:19:33,6 --> 00:19:38,645
Veitch or Jock, who was the eldest son,
they did the milking of the cow.

But I did the separating of the milk
from the cream, which is a centrifugal

force thing, and then the cleaning it up
afterwards, as well as chopping all the wood

for the heating and some of the cooking.

So I was busy and I was physically very
active.

And Zizi remarks how strong I am still
in my shoulders and my arms.

And that still remains from that as a
teenager.

So that was my life and I was very happy
with them.

I went to a good school.

Dad, as I called him, as the other
children did, was a teacher at a

secondary boarding school teaching
bookkeeping and economics, which was

important for, I mean, it was a school,
it was

80% boarding school, modeled on Eton and
these posh schools in England.

But in New Zealand, it wasn't exactly
posh.

It pretended to be and tried to be, but
it wasn't in reality.

But there were mostly children from
doctors and professional people with borders.

80% of them were borders.

And then there were some from Wanganui
itself, like me.

And

Yes, I was very happy there and did
well, yes.

And at the end of my secondary school
there, I won a scholarship, there were

public exams.

I won a scholarship to go to the
university, which didn't pay everything,

but it was one of the better quality
ones.

And so

But then as well as that, I worked
during the school holiday, during

university holidays and the summers, and
earned extra money that way.

So I was financially independent of the
each family who looked after me all

during the war, just as there was one of
their sons, they had Jews, and they also

came also at the school, same school.

Yes, and then I was, yes, I was
independent then.

I had to be, as I said, washing dishes
at the student hospital the first year

that I was there and things like that.

Then during the long vacations in the
summer, working on a farm or on some

other job.

One was on a building job.

And that's how I then grew up and then I

I won other scholarship staff to carry
me forward.

So I did a master's degree in maths in
one year because, this was because of

the New Zealand situation.

It wasn't, I mean, here people come up
to do a maths degree and they already

know a lot of maths.

In New Zealand you couldn't, didn't have
that.

And so I could do that in one year.

I'm not the only person.

And then I did two years for physics,
master's degree, including an

experimental thesis.

So I won enough scholarships to carry me
through those.

And then at the end of that time, I won
a scholarship to come to England.

That was a

That was a bit better paid than any of
the others.

I mean, people were not conscious of
inflation, at least not inflation

proofing things the way they are now.

But this was a scholarship from the
Shell Company, the International Shell Company.

And they, of course, understood about
inflation.

And so it was a better, higher level.

The New Zealand is sort of divided into
four sections, two in North and two in

the South Island.

And these, the heads of the Shell in
those four years, they'd come together

every now and, and including for
selecting the person for the Shell Scholarship.
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00:24:23,863 --> 00:24:28,1
I think it was one of their sort of
goodies to come together, a nice thing

to do, meet these young people and have
a lunch together and so on.

And

The personal manager in Wellington, the
top one, didn't expect me to be a

serious candidate.

But I don't know why, but he was
interested in the testimonial that my

maths professor had written.

And I don't know, my maths professor was
quite a

a character, but in a very good way, in
a very sensible way.

He'd been a, he'd come from England at
the end of the war, he'd been a city

councillor in Leeds, you know, that was
in the bomb flight path to Liverpool.

And as a city councillor, he was very
much involved in, I mean, he wasn't

called up, he was stayed in, it was one
of the northern cities, I can't remember

which one,

being a very responsible person.

So he was very good.

But anyway, the personnel manager of
Shell in Wellington thought, I wonder

how the person, when we meet him,
squares up with what the professor wrote

about him.

And so instead of being off the list,

*** **** it, the others, they all voted
for me for the scholarship.

So I was lucky.

And that then pulled me the next year to
Cambridge.

And here was another lucky thing.

Neville Mott was professor in Bristol
and out in New Zealand.

I didn't.

I knew somebody had come back from
England and said, Mott is the right

person for you to work with because of
your interests.

And so I was applying to Bristol.

But then they, in London, the Shell
people, picked up on their antenna that

Mott would be moving to Cambridge.

And so they switched my application to
Cambridge and probably had to pull one

of, you know the English expression,
pull strings, yes, so as to get me also

into a college.

And so, in fact, I arrived in Cambridge,
and that was in 1948, October, the same

time as Mott arrived from Bristol.

And this is now the story that you like.
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00:27:16,2 --> 00:27:22,175
What I hadn't realized was that Mott
didn't have a circle of graduate

students around him.

He wasn't a person to build a group in
that way.

But he was very good at talking with
experimentalists, and he'd done this

during the war.

And seeing things that needed doing
where theoretical physics or somebody

like with our back kind of background
could be helpful.

And so

He said, well, I'm going to be rather
busy and with this new job, but wouldn't

you like to do with ionosphere or fluid
dynamics or something?

And I spent a day and I thought, no, I
don't.

I mean, what attracted me was, well,
metals, solids were down to earth.

And as a New Zealander, you know, that
was practical, not ionosphere.

Who cares about the ionosphere in New
Zealand?

a population of one and a half million,
and a country that stretched over a

thousand miles.

And you only had one and a half million
people.

You had to be down to earth, as we use
the expression.

And so the quantum, but this was the
first time, really, after World War II,

that quantum mechanical calculations
could be done.

Well, in the 1930s, there had been
calculations on individual atoms,

hydrogen, helium, lithium, and so on.

They'd got as far as aluminium by the
time I came in 1947, '48, '47, '48?

What was it, '47 or '48?

I said, I came in '48, I think.

Well, I got lost.

But anyway, yes, because this was a real
quantum mechanical calculation.

One of the early ones that directly
related to the experimental work that

was going on at that time.

And so this, it was on the one hand, the
future, quantum mechanical.

On the other hand, it was down to earth.

It was doing some calculations relating
to measurements that they were doing at

that time in Cambridge.

So this was ideal for my conception.

So I was very lucky.

And so Mott said, well, why don't you go
down to the low temperature group and

see if you can make yourself useful.

And

Lucky me, I found something that I did
could do.

The first project that I looked at were
heavy metals, and the quantum mechanics

of heavy metals I couldn't do at that
time.

But light metals like aluminium with
orthogonalized plane waves were possible.

And Mott was extremely helpful in
keeping me in touch with

that was going on in the United States.

There was practically none except some
magnetism in this country, and there was

nothing on the continent.

This was just after the war, it took
time to recover and start building up.

So I worked in some ways as an offshoot
from the United States, because what

received from every quarter

John Slater, as part of his contact with
the research contract, wrote up in a

volume each quarter, I think, or each
half year, what was going on in the

field of electronic structure of solids
for everybody, and what was one of the

people who received this.

So from that, I knew what was going on
about orthogonalized plane waves

And so on.

So I was lucky in that.

All these lucky things together.

Yeah, in two years, instead of three
years for a PhD, I'd finished in two years.

And off I went to the United States.

Mott arranged for me to work with
Charlie Cattell in Berkeley.

Charlie Cattell himself was not in good
health, and he was in Hawaii for his health.

But so I was there instead of him
relating to some of the experimentalists

in Berkeley and then also in elsewhere
around the United States.

I went traveling along, I was encouraged
to do that.

So that got me into the swim of the
state theory.

And then, yes, then after one year,

I had a position in Cambridge that I
could go to a university, not a teaching

position, but a research position, but
that I could do what I liked.

And so I went back to the Cavendish and
started doing electronic structure

things, continued doing electronic
structure things, and gradually building

up the group.

At what time were you become a member in
Clare College?

When you arrived, maybe you were in...

No, I wasn't from New Zealand.

I was rather suspicious of colleges, and
I didn't try to become a member of a

college or anything.

But then in 1960, the person who had,
Brian Pippard, who had been doing the

physics teaching in

and Clare became a professor or
something and was not, if you're above a

certain level, you can't do, you cannot
get paid for college teaching.

You're allowed to do it, but you have to
do it free.

So in practice it doesn't happen.

And so in 1960, Eric Ashby was just
appointed as the new

head of Clare.

And everything changed.

The previous master of Clare had been
senior tutor and master for 50 years.

So if you count back 50 years from the
1940s,

that takes you before World War I.

And so you can imagine.

I mean, he did a wonderful job through
the Depression and through the war and

so on.

But there was a feeling amongst the
existing fellows that it needed to move

into the 20th century.

And so I felt at home there straight
away.

And so I was appointed

three years in the first instance, but
then it rapidly became clear that I was

happy there.

I mean, although my image of colleges
from New Zealand was much more

old-fashioned, and I was not like that.

So yes, and of course, the 1960s were a
time of upheaval.

I mean, it was

The government expected Cambridge, well,
after World War II, everybody realized

that you needed an educated workforce.

And so the number of positions for
universities, the new universities at

Brighton and Bath and so on were all
founded in the 1950s or 1960s, and they

were attracting a whole

whole new range of students.

And so there was a lot going on in these
directions, including changes in Cambridge.

And the number of fellows had to
increase, and the government demanded

that the number of students was
increased, and so on.

So

there was a general atmosphere of
change.

And of course, then people, some people
suggested, well, why keep single sex colleges?

Why not go co-ed?

And King's College and Churchill College
decided

in the 1960s that they would go in.

And then it took a bit of time for the
schools to be informed and so on, that

people would apply.

I mean, at that time, people made
applications for going to Cambridge

colleges for some years before because
their father had been there, et cetera.

was a very old-fashioned kind of family
tradition.

So a lot of adjustments, detailed
adjustments had to be, psychological

adjustments had to be made.

And this came during the 1960s.

And one of the questions was, well, why
not go co-ed?

And have women in the colleges.

Instead of, you see, there was Girton
College, way miles out of town, and then

there was Newnham.

And that was all.

And

Well, this discussion was going on in
several colleges, not in others, but it

wasn't clear.

And then I remember the time came where
it was clear that we should either go

with the other two colleges, which was
Churchill and King's, or not at all, I

mean, or put it off for some years.

And this was then 1970 that they were
going.

So in '68,

Claire really had to get off the fence,
as we say in English.

And then we voted and we agreed to go to

that we would go ed, but only by one
vote.

It required to change the statutes of
the college, required a two-thirds

majority of the fellows.

And two-thirds is quite a lot.

And so we were right on that borderline.

And so

But then we had to have a special
meeting, specifically according to the

statute, designed for changing of the
statutes of the college.

Well, then I was away and somebody else
was away, and the two-thirds majority

was away.

But the feelings were very intense in a
way that even surprised me.

I remember writing that it's the only
time in my life that I have seen

grown-up men literally hysterical at
this idea of going, go ahead.

I don't know whether when we finally
did, they still felt that way, I hope not.

I don't think so.

I think, I mean, it all went so
smoothly.

And

Yes, then in 1970, we had the Girls Cup,
yes.

We had a two-thirds majority, and that
worked and through.

But only just by, you know, by one
version.

I didn't know that part of the story.
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00:40:01,868 --> 00:40:05,5
When I was first arrived in Clare,

Those fellows and also information
leaflets describe the proud things in

the history of Clare College.

Become one of the three colleges, first
accepting female students was one of the

proud things.

Which year did you come?

Ninety-one.

Ninety-one.

So it's quite a long time later.

Yes, Because this was 1970.

Yes, Well, it was interesting.