My father, Derek Haisman, who has died aged 92, was a remarkable man and a research chemist who achieved great things in food technology, working on, among other products, mushy peas and Cup-a-Soup.
Born near Durham to Robert Haisman, a haulage contractor, and his wife, Bessie (nee Salmon), Derek attended Gosforth grammar school, leaving at 16 to work as a landscape gardener. A love of gardening stayed with him for the rest of his life. Towards the end of the second world war he joined the Intelligence Corps, where he was tasked with interrogating German soldiers. He did not feel he was much good at the job, being a raw 18-year-old, but relished the opportunity to travel in Italy and Austria.
Once the war was over, Derek was moved to the Education Corps, where he helped soldiers being demobbed to get into universities. This experience changed his outlook and he turned to night school as a way of qualifying as a chemist, taking a day job at the Washington Chemical Co, which made Milk of Magnesia.
After this, Derek joined Proctor & Gamble at their soap factory on the banks of the Tyne. This was the era of the “detergent revolution”, when powder began to replace soap blocks. His research focused on developing whitening agents. Derek still continued his studies, graduating with his doctorate from the University of London in 1958.
A socialist all his life, Derek found the soap industry unbearably commercial and felt he should do something more meaningful, so he turned to food research, taking a job for the British Research Institute at Chipping Campden, Gloucestershire. There he developed mushy peas from dry US imports. This success led to a job offer in 1967 from Unilever.
For the next 20 years he worked on a variety of food conundrums at the company’s base at Colworth House near Bedford. One of his achievements was securing the patent for Cup-a-Soup.
In 1953 he had married Sybil Davison; she died in 1986. The following year he was posted to Unilever’s factory in Hastings, New Zealand. While there he was offered a job at the Food Technology Research Centre based at Massey University in Palmerston North. Derek saw this as a chance for a fresh life. He adored his work and loved discovering new things over the next 30 years. Much of his research was published in scientific journals. Reluctantly, at the age of 90, he agreed to take “early” retirement.
In 1989 he married his second wife, Jan Lattey. She survives him along with his children, Richard, Catherine and me, from his marriage to Sybil, grandchildren, Rachel and Keri, and great-grandchildren, Evie and Winifred.
