Bob Hamilton, my father, has passed away at the age of 94. He was a computer software developer in the early years of the industry. He worked in the US on the Saturn 4B Rocket programme, which eventually led to Saturn 5, the rocket launch vehicle for the 1969 lunar landing.Bob was born in London. Edith, his mother, died when Bob was seven years old. He and Margot, his older sister, were raised by James, his father. James worked in a law firm and at times by several aunts and uncles.Bob grew up in the second world war and spent his teens in air-raid shelters. He left school at 16 and worked as a tax clerk, while waiting for the conscription call. He was one of the few to have been sent to Burma in the last group to sign up for conscription in June 1945. However, a long training period in the UK prevented this. Instead, he went to India, followed by Egypt and Iraq in April 1946. He returned home in April 1948.Bob's life was forever changed by a 1951 visit to the Festival of Britain. He saw a Ferranti computer in the Dome of Discovery, built to display a game called Nim. It required six cabinets of electronics. After applying to University of London evening courses, he switched to pure maths, applied mathematics, and physics and graduated in 1956 with the highest percentage of firsts among all universities colleges.He flew to Canada two years later to pursue a career as a programmer. Bob lived in Toronto, Vancouver, and Montreal before moving to the USA in 1962. He then headed to California in June 1964 to begin work on a new Nasa project: the Saturn 4B rocket.Bob described the project as a terrible waste of money in a sardonic fashion. However, he admitted that he watched the moon landing from the UK several years later. This was an event he must have felt proud of and was often too self-deprecating about it.Bob accepted a job at ICT, a British computing company. ICL later took over ICT. I remember sitting in Richmond Park watching polo on Friday afternoons. The sun shone. He was in swinging London, and he stayed in the industry until his retirement early in the 1990s.He was an avid sportsman and preferred to ski, water-ski, squash, and tennis. In his 90s, he played tennis many times per week and was treasurer for his local club for over 20 years. Bob's intelligence, kindness, wit and unwavering energy for life were unwavering.His wife Patricia (nee Mandelik), whom I met on a ski holiday in 1968, is his survivor.
