John Barrett Hasted (17 February 1921 – 4 May 2002) was a British physicist and folk musician.David Gregory. (2002). In Memoriam: John Hasted, 1921-2002. Canadian Folk Music/Bulletin de musique folklorique canadienne, Vol 36, No. 2. pp. 3-8. He was born in Woodbridge, Suffolk, on 17 February 1921, the son of John Ord Cobbold Hasted and Phyllis Barrett. He was a pioneer of radar development and an atomic physicist, but he was also a pioneer and mainstay of the post-war English folk music revival, a founder and champion of the skiffle movement, and a passionate advocate for both traditional and political folksong.
Biography Hasted obtained a scholarship to study at Winchester College, where he won the science prize for developing a method of measuring velocity and distance by means of reflected sound waves, which in effect is a principle later used in radar and sonar technology. He won a scholarship to study Chemistry as an undergraduate at New College, Oxford. While there he also won a choral scholarship and was part of the New College Choir.
It was during his time in the Choir that he was introduced to the music of Vaughan Williams and other composers who drew their inspiration from English folksong. A lifelong love of folksong was born in him during those years. In 1940 he met Alan Bush, who became Hasted's first musical mentor. It was during his time in Oxford that his political interests were awakened, and his ideals were drawn to the left of the political spectrum. His musical development continued, and inspired by Alan Bush he soon joined the Workers Music Association, and took part in the WMA Summer School which was to become a very important gathering where some of the most distinguished British singers, composers, conductors, collectors and scholars of folk music, orchestral and brass players and jazz musicians could share their skills and expertise with students from all sectors of society and pass on their knowledge and ideas to the next generation.
Inspired by what he learnt at the WMA, Hasted founded his own Oxford Workers' and Students' Choir and they performed spirituals, labour movement anthems, and other material with political and social content. During this time, World War 2 was raging and Hasted's studies and musical activities were interrupted when he joined the British army in 1941. His scientific knowledge of reflected sound waves did not pass unnoticed and he was soon detailed to work with Charles Percy Snow, C.P. Snow, and sent to join a specialist team of "radio officers" working on the development and improvement of radar at Richmond Park. This work was very secret and of great importance to the war effort.
Hasted's understanding and ideas on the technical possibilities of sound waves meant he was later sent to a Research Station in Malvern where he worked with a specialist team on the development of a portable radar set which had to be efficient as well as compact and most importantly, hardy and durable to withstand transporting to a warzone, be it by wheeled vehicles or being air dropped by parachute or in a glider for later assembly and use. During his time at the Malvern research station, Hasted met Professor Frederick Lindemann (later Lord Cherwell), who was Winston Churchill's scientific adviser.
In 1942 Hasted was transferred to the active war zone of North Africa. He was deployed as a specialist wireless maintenance officer and was also responsible for installing the upgraded radar equipment in Alexandria (Egypt) and later in Malta. This last posting was of vital importance as a fierce battle had been raging from June 1940 to November 1942 for the control of this strategically important island. During this time, the air and naval forces of Fascist Italy and Nazi Germany fought against the Royal Air Force (RAF) and the Royal Navy. It was through radar that the Maltese defences were able to know in advance that enemy aircraft were on their way, also the number of planes and from which direction. The upgraded system Hasted installed could actually monitor them from the moment they took off from Sicily.
Hasted later took part in the Italian campaign, serving in the same regiment as Dr. Donald Hughes, a musician-educator who would also play a part in the post-war folksong revival.
When the war ended in 1945 and a general election was called in Britain, Hasted voted Labour like so many people, tired of war and hopeful of a bright, peaceful future. This saw the coming to power of the first Labour government with an overall majority. With the fighting over, he was demobbed and returned to his studies in Oxford.
Hasted returned to Oxford as a doctoral student working on microwave physics. He studied with Lindemann at Clarendon Laboratory, which is part of the Department of Physics at Oxford University. It houses the atomic and laser physics, condensed matter physics, and biophysics groups within the Department.
Alongside his interest in atomic energy, Hasted continued his musical pursuits and in 1946 he happened to hear an Almanac Singers' vinyl record that a friend had picked up in New York. The sound he heard made him realise that this was the kind of music that he wanted to sing and play. He wrote in his autobiography, Alternative Memoirs, "The Almanac Singers were the outcome of a whole tradition, entirely different from our own: group singing, to the accompaniment of two guitars and a five string banjo. It was just as the Carter Family had done it Bob Hinds, a merchant seaman, had brought the Almanacs 78rpm record 'Talking Union' for me to hear in 1946. I at once wanted to make music like this."
His studies kept him very busy. He also realised that involvement in politics would hinder his studies and career so he put them aside for a time. He completed his doctorate successfully and later moved to London where he met other music-minded enthusiastic people who were interested in his ideas of attempting to combine folk music and left-wing politics.
Professional career and folk music
It was in 1948 that Hasted first began to play a significant role in the post-war English folksong revival. He met and married Elizabeth Gregson, who was studying English at St Anne's College, Oxford. They made their home in Notting Hill Gate and in September 1949 their twin daughters were born. Hasted obtained a post in the Physics Department of University College, London, where he carried out detailed research on ions and on atomic collisions with Sir Harrie Massey who was Quain Professor of Physics and head of the University College London, Physics Department. Hasted worked with other researchers and succeeded in establishing UCL's reputation as a major centre for atomic physics. But Hasted did not forget his love of folk music. And in his spare time he joined Alan Bush's choir, the Workers' Music Association Singers, and later on formed his own group, Topic Singers.
This led to a joint project with the Labour Movement Theatre Group on a political musical revue performed at the Unity Theatre. It was during 1948 and 1949 that Hasted frequented the Leicester Square Jazz Club to hear such pioneers of the English traditional jazz revival as George Webb, Graeme Bell, and the Christie Brothers Stompers who were one of the most influential British New Orleans-style jazz bands of the early '50s.
A key moment in Hasted's music life took place when he met Albert Lancaster Lloyd. Commonly called Bert Lloyd, he was an English folk singer and collector of folk songs, and as such was a key figure in the British folk revival of the 1950s and 1960s. The lifelong friendship that was formed endured throughout their lives, despite some later differences of opinion on the path that the revival should follow. They also happened to share similar political opinions. Together the two men planned to form an Almanac-type folk group.
In his memoirs, Hasted described his meeting with Bert Lloyd like this: "It was years before I could even get hold of a folk guitar, let alone find other people with similar aspirations. Eventually I found folklorist Bert Lloyd and asked him if he wanted to start an Almanac group in England. To my astonishment his voice dropped about an octave, and he said very quietly "Passionately".
To be able to produce the sound he wanted, Hasted searched London in his quest for a suitable classic acoustic guitar. He eventually found a Martin guitar, an American manufactured instrument with an established pedigree for quality. He then started to learn how to play. He then wrote to People's Songs, an organization founded by Pete Seeger, Alan Lomax, Lee Hays, among others on December 31, 1945, in New York City, to "create, promote, and distribute songs of labour and the American people". Hasted asked them for copies of mimeographed instructional materials on playing the acoustic guitar compiled by Pete Seeger. Once he received these, he taught himself to play the guitar. Once he had mastered the basics, he also bought a five-string banjo and turned his hand to playing it too.
During this time Hasted's politics had also changed, he had seen how the Labour government of Clement Attlee had failed to bring about the social reform he and many other voters in 1945 had hoped for and supported. By 1949 his disillusionment led him to join the Communist Party, and that same year, he led a brigade of British youths on a visit to Yugoslavia, where they had volunteered to help reconstruct roads and railways destroyed by the war. His wife, Elizabeth, accompanied him despite being heavily pregnant at the time.
He took the opportunity to research local folk songs and he learnt a number of Serbo-Croat folksongs which he eventually incorporated into his musical repertoire. One of these songs was an ode to Josip Broz Tito, president of Yugoslavia. The simplicity of the song made it easy to follow and it did not take long for Hasted to add a further verse to it and encourage the British youths to sing along. The song went like this:
"Druje Tito, oy, Druji Tito / Lyublicici byela" ("Comrade Tito, oy, comrade Tito, / Our little white violet").
"Harry Pollitt, oi, Harry Pollitt, / Our little red geranium", or, more frivolously, "Mary Gibson, oi, Mary Gibson, / Burnt the stew last Tuesday".
Once back in Britain, Hasted's friendship with Bert Lloyd and their shared idea of forming a folk group came to fruition in the early' 50s. The group was called The Ramblers and they performed at trade union functions and demonstrations, but apparently never made any recordings. The members of the group were Bert Lloyd, John Hasted, Neste Revald, a guitarist, and Jean Butler, an American girl who brought lots of experience singing with a five-string banjo for American Unions and had often performed with the Almanacs. The inspiration for the group's name came from a song by Woody Guthrie "Ramblin' Round" which Jean Butler had sung for them.