My father, Cyril Smith, who has died aged 92, was an electrical engineering lecturer at Salford University. He co-wrote Electromagnetic Man: Health and Hazard in the Electrical Environment with the science journalist Simon Best in 1989 and appeared on television several times in connection with his work. After appearing in a 1978 BBC Horizon documentary, The Vital Spark, Cyril was contacted by residents of Fishpond, Dorset, who asked him to investigate reports of sensitivity to living under power cables. He spoke about Fishpond on the Channel 4 consumer programme 4 What It’s Worth.
Born in London, Cyril was the elder son of Reg, a tax inspector, and Evelyn (nee Stobbs), who had worked at a fashion house. Reg’s job meant that he was frequently moved by the Inland Revenue, and the family lived in Ilkley, Yorkshire, then Brighton, before they were evacuated to Malvern, Worcestershire, in 1940 and Cyril was sent to Douai school in Berkshire. He was a fine singer and, with his father, sang Gilbert and Sullivan songs in a Malvern musical society, for which his mother made the costumes.
In 1947 Cyril joined the Royal Radar Establishment in Malvern where radar had been developed. He studied physics at Exeter University from 1953, followed by postgraduate studies of medical X-ray images at Imperial College London. At a Catholic students’ conference he met Eileen Jackson, a medical student; they married in 1958 and had three sons. From 1959 Cyril taught physics at Downside school in Somerset while completing his PhD, then in 1964 he was appointed to a lecturing position at Salford.
Eileen returned to medicine in 1969, specialising in psychiatry and, while she did the long hours of hospital house jobs, Cyril looked after me and my brothers. He took over the cooking, becoming an accomplished chef. He and Eileen enjoyed caravan holidays, hill-walking and Labour party activism.
At Salford University in the early 70s, Cyril initiated the first biomedical electronics undergraduate course in the UK. He was secretary of the International Dielectric Society and produced 200 publications during his career. In cooperation with Professor Herbert Fröhlich, from the University of Liverpool, he explored electromagnetic effects in biological systems and water.
From 1982 he assisted diagnosis and therapy for electrosensitive patients at the Breakspear hospital in Hemel Hempstead, Hertfordshire, and continued diagnosing electrosensitive patients until shortly before his death.
Cyril retired, reluctantly, in 1990, continuing with his research, and writing papers and giving lectures. He also completed updates for a second edition of Electromagnetic Man, which his co-author will publish.
Eileen went into a nursing home in 2017 with Parkinson’s disease and dementia. Cyril visited her to feed her lunch, never missing a day in three years.
She died in 2020. Cyril is survived by his sons, Paul, Martin and me, grandchildren, Oliver and Madeleine, and brother, Jim.
