January - March 1959 - Marie Louise Killick

11th January 1959: Telegram to Justice Lloyd-Jacob regarding the blockage Marie is experiencing in pursuing the assessment of her damage claim against Pye. She has tried four solicitors who all believe that the matter is to complex for them. She is also experiencing anonymous phone calls (see documents).

31st January: Mr Walker, (her junior council during the infringement case) also refuses to act in the assessment of damages, claiming it is a separate matter from proving infringement. He shares the same chambers as Mr Johnson, Pye’s leading council during the court hearings.

Note: Solicitors after talking to Mr Dicks decides not to take the case because Mr Dicks questions the amount of damages due to Marie!

12th February: Marie finally finds a solicitor prepared to take on the damage enquiry against Pye.

21st February: Bankruptcy notice served on Marie. Marie denied that she owed Mrs Thomas (petitioner) the debt.

24th February: Musical Trade deny knowledge of Marie’s Sapphox or Pye’s Dual Purpose stylus when enquires are made by potential backers for manufacture of Sapphox. Potential backers withdraw from negotiations.

18th March: Bankruptcy Notice issued 8 months after the judgement upheld against Pye in Marie’s favour in Court of Appeal. Marie still trying to have the judgement in Mrs Thomas’s favour for debt set aside.

A Sound Revolution

A Sound Revolution is the true story of Marie Louise Killick’s valiant fight against powerful men in the musical world. They had pirated her invention of a stylus that was to revolutionise the quality of sound reproduction of gramophone records.

Despite winning her ten-year legal battle in The Royal Courts of Justice in London, her opponents, Pye Radio, found other means to ensure she never received her damages – worth millions. Manoeuvred into bankruptcy, she spent three years trying to prevent the Official Receiver from settling her damage claim against Pye Radio for a derisory sum. She died at the age of 49, penniless and homeless.

During her fight she was ‘kidnapped’, her supporters were assaulted and even her solicitor was frightened off the case. During the fight, she was hounded from pillar to post and forced to spend six weeks with her children living in a builder’s yard. Truly a story of enormous courage and tenacity on her part to bring the men who had robbed her to justice!

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In the People Talk audio feature below, you can hear a short introduction to A Sound Revolution and an extract.

Marie Killick – first caller to the Samaritans

In November 1953 an English clergyman set up the first telephone helpline for people considering suicide. The Reverend Chad Varah began the pioneering service from a room in his own church house. This 9-minute BBC World Service programme tells the story of the helpline and the first call Chad Varah received, on 2nd November. It was from “a woman with a family, who was absolutely desperate.” Though anonymous in the programme, that woman was Marie Killick, as told here in The Good Samaritan.