Geoffrey Pyke - After World War II

After World War II

Pyke continued his flow of ideas to make a better world. One suggestion for the problems of energy-starved post-war Europe was to propel railway wagons by human muscle power – employing 20 to 30 men on bicycle-like mechanisms to pedal a cyclo-tractor. Pyke reasoned that the energy in a pound of sugar cost about the same as an equivalent energy in the form of coal and that while Europe had plenty of sugar and unemployed people, there was a shortage of coal and oil. He recognised that such a use of human muscle power was in some ways distasteful, but he could not see that the logic of arguments about calories and coal were unlikely to be sufficiently persuasive.

Pyke was given a commission to look into the problems of the National Health Service and, characteristically, made his contribution as a part of a minority report. He remained eager to convey his unconventional ideas, he wrote and broadcast. He campaigned against the death penalty, and for government support of UNICEF But the more he thought about trying to achieve a better world, the more pessimistic he became – it seemed that human nature was antithetical to innovation in general and his ideas in particular. He was widely mocked in the media of the time, even in left-wing publications. A sense of gloom overtook him.