My father, Bryan Aves, who has died aged 92, established a successful career as a radiographer and radiotherapist despite having left school at 14 without qualifications. At one point he worked as an assistant for the physicists Otto Frisch and Joseph Rotblat in the secret “tube alloys” experiments that led to the creation of the atom bomb, apparently without knowing what the project was about.
Born in Brixton, south London, to Arthur, an accounts clerk for a dog biscuit factory, and Ellen (nee Stallard), a cleaner, Bryan had a cleft palate at birth; reconstructive surgery was not undertaken until he was 13. Because of the Depression his father struggled for work and the family moved frequently – Bryan attended more than 10 schools, and his education was basic.
As a child he developed a fascination for the element radium, having read a biography of Marie Curie. On leaving school it was suggested to him that working in a hospital supporting radiotherapists might be an outlet for this interest.
The second world war had just begun, and for a year he worked at Westminster hospital in London, where duties included collecting fragments of incendiary bombs to recover magnesium alloy, and lowering the radioactive material into a borehole sunk into the clay far below the level of the Thames during bombing raids.
In late 1940 his father moved to Southport for work, and Bryan and his mother followed the next year. Bryan took a reference to James Chadwick at Liverpool University, and was taken on as a junior lab assistant helping Frisch and Rotblat. During this time, Bryan also studied for his school certificate at night classes.
When the secret work was moved to the US, Bryan was left behind and called up for army service. Despite five years’ relevant experience with radiation, it was his interest in photography that led to him being trained as a radiographer by the Royal Army Medical Corps, serving for three years in Palestine.
After army service, a number of radiography positions followed before he moved into radiotherapy and returned to Westminster hospital for five years from 1950, during which period he became a fellow of the Society of Radiographers. He also met Enid Sutton, a medical secretary at Westminster, and they married in 1951.
From 1955 until his retirement in 1990, Bryan was superintendent radiotherapist at Pembury hospital in Kent, where his focus was always to alleviate for his patients, as far as possible, the frightening experience of cancer treatment by radiation. During his tenure the department developed considerably (including the construction of a cobalt unit in the 1960s).
As a young man Bryan was a communist, but joined the Labour party during the early 1950s. After moving to Tunbridge Wells in 1955 he canvassed for the local party, one year standing unsuccessfully for election as a local councillor.
He is survived by Enid and their three children, Alison, Matthew and me, seven grandchildren and three great-grandchildren.
