Godfrey Hounsfield

Apart from my work, my greatest pleasures have been mainly out-of-doors, and although I no longer ski, I greatly enjoy walking in the mountains and leading country rambles. I am fond of music, whether light or classical, and play the piano in a self-taught way. In company, I enjoy lively, way-out discussions.

The periods between my 11th and 18th years remain the most vivid in my memory because this was the time of my first attempts at experimentation, which might never have been made had I lived in the city. I made hazardous investigations of the principles of flight, launching myself from the tops of haystacks with a homemade glider.

On a farm, you can get very bored.

In the past, radiation treatment planning has been a very lengthy procedure. Now, with the aid of CT therapy-planning computer programs, we can position the therapy beams automatically with precision in a few minutes.

Some time ago, I investigated the possibility that a computer might be able to reconstruct a picture from sets of very accurate X-ray measurements taken through the body at a multitude of different angles.

I was born and brought up near a village in Nottinghamshire and in my childhood enjoyed the freedom of the rather isolated country life. After the First World War, my father had bought a small farm, which became a marvelous playground for his five children.