Reg Moores, who died on February 13 aged 88, was an inventor who developed the radio microphone and taught himself to build nuclear quadrupole resonance spectrometers in his shed; in his day-job he was a professional ice skater, magician, barrel jumper, unicyclist, fire-eater, flea circus proprietor, and the European whistling champion of 1996.
Some of Moores's claims, such as the suggestion that he invented the suitcase on wheels, are impossible to verify. What is certain is that, in 1947, he was working as a professional skater at charity ice shows when he hit on an idea to transform what were then "mute" spectacles into acts with singing and dialogue broadcast over the loudspeaker system.
He set about designing small transmitters, using ex-government surplus parts, and eventually came up with costumes with wireless microphones attached which he demonstrated to the producer Gerald Palmer at Brighton ice rink. Moores's contraption was tried out during the pantomime Aladdin on Ice at Brighton in 1949. As Abanazar, George Stevens had one stitched into his cloak, and reported that it worked perfectly, with no interference or loss of signal.
But when the impresario Tom Arnold booked Moores and six of his new microphones for a more elaborate production of Rose Marie on Ice, it was decided that expecting world-class figure skaters like Barbara Ann Scott and Michael Kirby to speak and sing as well as skate was too risky. So the microphones were dropped in favour of using "dubbers" to sing the songs while the skaters merely mimed and concentrated on their rocker turns and Besti squats.
Moores explained that he never patented his wireless microphone because he was using radio frequencies illegally. But staff at the Science Museum have confirmed that in 1972 he presented his 1947 prototype to them, and that it was a pioneering device which is under consideration for inclusion in a proposed gallery project entitled "Making Modern Communications".
Moores also gave the museum a working model of one of his nuclear quadrupole resonance spectrometers, having forsaken the professional ice-skating rink for his garden shed and the field of molecular spectroscopy. Although lacking both training and qualifications, Moores built several of the devices, having apparently mastered the science of nuclear quadrupole resonance (NQR) spectroscopy – the study of the structure of atoms by observing the frequency at which they vibrate.
Moores designed and built spectrometers for several universities in Britain and overseas, as well as other scientific equipment for King's College, London, Queen Elizabeth College and assorted polytechnics. In 2003 he impressed an interviewer with the assertion that the last spectrometer he had built, for McGill University in Montreal, was destined for the university's Rutherford Museum. On a more homely note he also produced the first (and very possibly the only) electrically-heated dressing-gown.
Reginald Moores was born on September 10 1922 in Brighton and educated at Park Street school. As a teenager in the 1930s he worked at a local garage and served an apprenticeship as an electrical engineer. On the outbreak of war he joined the ARP, which later became the local Home Guard unit, and in his spare time began performing as an ice skater in London and at venues along the south coast.
In late 1943 Moores volunteered for service in the RAFVR and a year later was selected for training as a flight engineer. He was completing his course in Coastal Command when the war came to an end. After a period at the Air Ministry, he left the service in early 1947 as a flight sergeant.
Moores resumed his career as an ice skater and, in 1949, featured on an early BBC television transmission from Alexandra Palace. In the same year he was topping the bill in Ice Fantasia at the Hippodrome, Accrington.
Eventually hanging up his own skates, he became an ice show engineer and chief electrician for the Tom Arnold organisation, working mainly on the popular Holiday On Ice productions of the 1950s. In the dying days of variety, he performed variously as a fire-eater, stilt-walker, unicyclist, barrel jumper and the proprietor of a flea circus. As his own stage career waned, he operated as a theatrical agent in the West End.
By the 1960s he was working as a television repair man at the Brighton Co-Op, once terrorising colleagues by stuffing a petrol-soaked bandage into his mouth and blowing a sheet of flame across the workshop. He moved to Brighton Polytechnic as chief laboratory technician in the 1980s, when visitors to his office would find his desk piled high with valves and circuitry and big band music playing on an ancient radio.
While experimenting with electronic equipment in his shed, Moores believed he had devised a way of conducting electricity through his body into glass batons, producing an effect similar to that created by the "light sabres" wielded by characters in the Star Wars films. In 2002, worried that radiation from his mobile phone might damage his brain, he transposed the earpiece and microphone on his own handset so that the antenna was at the bottom rather than at the top.
Among the achievements catalogued extensively on his website, Moores listed the award of the Baird pioneer medal by the Royal Television Society for an outstanding contribution to the medium. In 2007 he complained in the Brighton media that despite his lengthy record of scientific accomplishments he had never featured in the annual honours lists. In later years he became a prolific, if eccentric, correspondent to his local newspaper, firing off regular letters ranging from criticism of regional television news, airport taxes, homicidal pavement-hogging cyclists and striking firemen to the demolition of the local ice rink. Sometimes he signed himself "Professor Reg Moores".
It is possible that in claiming to have triumphed at the European Whistling Championships in 1996 (of which there is no known record), he may in recollection have confused the accolade with participation in those reportedly held at Eastbourne in 1992.
His claim to have invented the suitcase on wheels in 1945 is also hard to verify. The invention is more scantily documented than his work with radio microphones – indeed, it is apparently not documented at all – and appears to conflict with the claim staked by an American luggage manufacturer, Bernard Sadow, in 1970. Sadow's design, inspired by a wheeled platform that overtook him as he wrestled with two heavy suitcases at Puerto Rico airport, was refined in 1987 by an airline pilot, Robert Plath, whose "rollaboard" design is now an industry standard.
Moores had, for sure, been a member of Equity, the actors' union, since 1949 and served as public relations officer for the Sussex branch. He was also a member of the International Brotherhood of Magicians and of the Sussex Magic Circle.
Reg Moores's wife, Aggie, predeceased him. There were no children.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/obituaries/technology-obituaries/8362736/Reg-Moores.html
Reginald Moores was born on September 10 1922 in Brighton and educated at Park Street school. As a teenager in the 1930s he worked at a local garage and served an apprenticeship as an electrical engineer. On the outbreak of war he joined the ARP, which later became the local Home Guard unit, and in his spare time began performing as an ice skater in London and at venues along the south coast.
In late 1943 Moores volunteered for service in the RAFVR and a year later was selected for training as a flight engineer. He was completing his course in Coastal Command when the war came to an end. After a period at the Air Ministry, he left the service in early 1947 as a flight sergeant.
Moores resumed his career as an ice skater and, in 1949, featured on an early BBC television transmission from Alexandra Palace. In the same year he was topping the bill in Ice Fantasia at the Hippodrome, Accrington.
Eventually hanging up his own skates, he became an ice show engineer and chief electrician for the Tom Arnold organisation, working mainly on the popular Holiday On Ice productions of the 1950s. In the dying days of variety, he performed variously as a fire-eater, stilt-walker, unicyclist, barrel jumper and the proprietor of a flea circus. As his own stage career waned, he operated as a theatrical agent in the West End.
By the 1960s he was working as a television repair man at the Brighton Co-Op, once terrorising colleagues by stuffing a petrol-soaked bandage into his mouth and blowing a sheet of flame across the workshop. He moved to Brighton Polytechnic as chief laboratory technician in the 1980s, when visitors to his office would find his desk piled high with valves and circuitry and big band music playing on an ancient radio.
While experimenting with electronic equipment in his shed, Moores believed he had devised a way of conducting electricity through his body into glass batons, producing an effect similar to that created by the "light sabres" wielded by characters in the Star Wars films. In 2002, worried that radiation from his mobile phone might damage his brain, he transposed the earpiece and microphone on his own handset so that the antenna was at the bottom rather than at the top.
Among the achievements catalogued extensively on his website, Moores listed the award of the Baird pioneer medal by the Royal Television Society for an outstanding contribution to the medium. In 2007 he complained in the Brighton media that despite his lengthy record of scientific accomplishments he had never featured in the annual honours lists. In later years he became a prolific, if eccentric, correspondent to his local newspaper, firing off regular letters ranging from criticism of regional television news, airport taxes, homicidal pavement-hogging cyclists and striking firemen to the demolition of the local ice rink. Sometimes he signed himself "Professor Reg Moores".
It is possible that in claiming to have triumphed at the European Whistling Championships in 1996 (of which there is no known record), he may in recollection have confused the accolade with participation in those reportedly held at Eastbourne in 1992.
His claim to have invented the suitcase on wheels in 1945 is also hard to verify. The invention is more scantily documented than his work with radio microphones – indeed, it is apparently not documented at all – and appears to conflict with the claim staked by an American luggage manufacturer, Bernard Sadow, in 1970. Sadow's design, inspired by a wheeled platform that overtook him as he wrestled with two heavy suitcases at Puerto Rico airport, was refined in 1987 by an airline pilot, Robert Plath, whose "rollaboard" design is now an industry standard.
Moores had, for sure, been a member of Equity, the actors' union, since 1949 and served as public relations officer for the Sussex branch. He was also a member of the International Brotherhood of Magicians and of the Sussex Magic Circle.
Reg Moores's wife, Aggie, predeceased him. There were no children.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/obituaries/technology-obituaries/8362736/Reg-Moores.html
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