The Guardian du lieu suivant : London, Greater London, England • 39

THE GUARDIAN Personal 19 Tuesday April 5 1994 Rupert Bruce-Mitford, right, at the site of the Sutton Hoo ship in 1967 Keeper of the death ship Obituary Rupert Bruce-Mitford UPERT Bruce-Mitford, who has that whose died tiny names aged band 79, are of will linked scholars join with great archaeological discoveries. He did not himself excavate the Sutton Hoo ship burial, but when during the second world war, Thomas Kendrick, of the British Museum, wrote to the young BruceMitford, then serving in the Royal Signals, telling Bruce-Mitford that he would be responsible for the study and publication of the finds, Kendrick made the perfect choice. Just as the undisturbed AngloSaxon ship burial (near Woodbridge in Suffolk) was one of the most memorable archaeological discoveries in Britain, so Bruce-Mitford's publications on it are a classic of archaeological literature. The first volume, which appeared in 1975, was described by the president of the Society of Antiquaries as "one of the great books of the The second volume came in 1978, and a third in 1983. Neil Stratford, BruceMitford's successor at the British Museum, said these massive tomes "stand in their own right as a tribute to Kendrick's They also reveal much about Bruce-Mitford.

They contained contributions from many specialists, but much of the text was his own, and his guiding hand is evident throughout. He later recalled the conservation years, "great days for Sutton Hoo when new, often dramatic discoveries were being made in the workshops all the time. Built from fragments, astonishing artefacts helmet, shield, drinking horns were Bruce-Mitford was Keeper of the Department of British and Mediaeval Antiquities (1954-69) at the British Museum, then Keeper when the department was renamed Medieval and Later Antiquities (1969-75). From 1975-1977 he was Research Keeper. He acquired his wide-ranging curiosity from his father, who combined being a geographer and vulcanologist with journalism.

Apart from his involvement with Sutton Hoo, which extended over much of his working life, he did many other things. His academic posts and honours were numerous. So successful was the British Window of opportunity progress measures in under radio Cockburn counter- team that a joint Anglo-American was set up at Malvern in late 1943. Claimed by the Americans to be "hugely the ensuing collaboration was said to have saved some 450 aircraft, and ten Sir Robert Cockburn near Swanage and later at falling bundles of thin strips of times as many lives, in the US 8th Malvern, Worcestershire metallic foil, cut to specific Army Air Force alone. charged with developing radio lengths to cause lasting radar Working with Leonard countermeasure jammers for the echoes equivalent to those of Cheshire, Cockburn also greatly newly-discovered radio beams, large, four-engined, bombers.

helped to deceive the enemy IR warfare scientist Britain's ROBERT of so pioneering electronic important COCKBURN, to the with cities. intended blitz which on to the direct London its Luftwaffe and bombers other in idea After controversy would counter-counter overcoming have (because if effect the of considerable that the enemy this This during electronic Normandy he the did by night signals, landings creating before from in a the June spurious handful D-Day 1944. modern front-line aerial defence Cockburn's imaginative and worked out the principle for of aircraft, to represent a mock technology, has died, aged 84. often provocative ideas resulted themselves and used it against armada of attacking bombers He spent the first seven years of in highly successful "beam- Britain), it was first used to great these ghostly planes diverted the thirties as a science teacher bending" devices the first effect in the first big raid on much of the German defences at the West Ham Municipal break-though in what is now Hamburg in July, 1943. well to the west of the intended College, before becoming a electronic warfare.

As the enemy Thereafter, under the British Allied assault. researcher in communications at produced new radio beam codename Window, and the Recognised at the end of the the Royal Aircraft Establishment systems, his team devised a American Chaff, it proved to be a war with the US Congressional (RAE) at Farnborough. In 1940, deceptively simple, yet standard device of electronic Medal of Merit, Cockburn joined he headed the wartime team extraordinarily effective, warfare and, as demonstrated in the newly-formed atomic energy first at the Telecommunications counter-measure. the Falklands and Gulf wars, team at Harwell for three years Research Establishment (TRE) This was the dropping of slow- continues to be effective today. until he became scientific adviser i Revolutionary truths Frances Donaldson "RANCES DONALDSON, who has nated died aged contemporary 87, almost revolu- origitionary candour about the royals with her biography of Edward VIII, published in 1974.

She was of an age to recall directly the inter-war, preabdication, glamour of Edward, when he was Prince of Wales, with his sleekly golden and well-tailored appearance. But she was herself the daughter of a snobbish, self-centred and spoilt success, the playwright Frederick Lonsdale, and had been immunised in childhood to the PoW's brand of He was in 1947 made a fellow of the Society of Antiquaries, and became a fellow of the British Academy in 1976. Even after his retirement, he held various visiting professorships and fellowships, and was a member of various foreign archaeological societies. At home, he was secretary of the Society of Antiquaries, and later, vice president. He was also extremely knowledgeable about mediacval pottery, wrote influentially on the subject, and helped to establish the National Reference Collection of dated medieval pottery.

There were also various publications on other subjects, including a facsimile edition of the Codex Lindisfarnensis, editing Recent Archaeological Excavations In Europe, and many papers and reviews. His excavations varied from early work at Seacourt in Buckinghamshire (1938-39) to, after the war, archaeological digs at Mawgan Porth in Cornwall (1949-54), and on the Chapter House graves at Lincoln Cathedral (1955). He also did some detailed work at Sutton Hoo itself from 1965-1968. Terence Mullaly Rupert Bruce-Mitford, born June 14, 1914; died March 10, 1994. to the Air Ministry in 1948.

His subsequent appointments as controller of guided weapons at the Ministry of Supply, and then chief scientist at the Ministry of Aviation, resulted in a knighthood in 1960, and his last official appointment was as Director of RAE Farnborough from 1964 until his retirement five years later. However, he continued actively as a research fellow of Churchill College, Cambridge, and chairman of the National Computing Centre for a further seven years. He was also chairman of the television advisory committee for posts and telecommunications from 1971 to 1973, and chairman of the BBC engineering advisory committee from 1973 until 1981, when he retired altogether to pursue his talent for sculpture. Norman Barfield Robert Cockburn, born March 31, 1909, died March 21, 1994, charm. Her father, finding her the perfect pet and amanuensis, had blocked or damned her attempts at acting and writing.

She had escaped him via a disastrous, virtually arranged, brief marriage; a second marriage, to Jack Donaldson (later Lord Donaldson of Kingsbridge) genuinely freed her. She farmed. She wrote practical books about farming. She proved herself free by writing her father's biography in 1957, firmly but fairly. There were other books, developing her curiosity and cool judgment, including The Marconi Scandal (an analysis of a 1912 political-financial affair) and a sketch of her country neighbour, Evelyn Waugh.

Then she won the Wolfson History Award, and best-seller status, for revealing that the popular image of the Prince of Wales the PoW of the night clubs, the golf course, and of publicly-declared sympathy with the unemployed had overlain a real, selfish and fractious, Edward. She had access to previously private records from the PoW's circle, and she used them scrupulously. When she later acted as consultant to a popular TV series, Edward And Mrs Simpson, which told part of the same story, she guaranteed the production had some quality. She also biographed Wodehouse; autobiographed, in a Child Of The Twenties and A Twentieth Century Life; and applied the same assiduity to researching histories of the British Council and of the Royal Opera House as she had, during her agricultural years, to explaining milk production without tears. Frances Annesley Donaldson, born January 13, 1907; died March 27, 1994.

Birthdays Prof John Albery, Master, University College, Oxford, 58; Alberto Romero (Cubby) Broccoli, film producer, 85; Allan Clarke, rock singer, 52; Roger Corman, film director, 68; Tom Finney, footballer, 72; Lady (Nigel) Fisher, founder, Women Caring Trust, 73; Arthur Hailey, author, 74; Nigel Hawthorne, actor, 65; Prof Denis Lawton, chairman, Consortium for Assessment and Testing in Schools, 63; Prof Donald Lynden-Bell, astronomer, 59; Peter Moore, professor of Decision Science, 66; Stan Orme, Labour MP, 71; Gregory Peck, actor, 78; Gen. Colin Powell, former chairman, US Joint Chiefs of Staff, 57; Brian Rouse, jockey, 54; Tessa Solesby, 62; Anne Scott-James, novelist, 81; Stanley Turrentine, saxophonist, 60. Frances Donaldson, biographer.