George Thornycroft Sassoon was a British scientist, electronic engineer, linguist, translator and author
Background
Sassoon was the only child of the poet Siegfried Sassoon and Hester Sassoon née Gatty, and was born in London, where his parents had rented a house in order to be closer to specialist help than in Wiltshire. In 1947, Sassoon"s parents separated, and he thereafter spent much of his childhood with his mother on the Scottish island of Mull.
Education
He was educated at Greenways Preparatory School, Ashton Gifford House, near Codford, then at Oundle School and King"s College, Cambridge.
Career
He was christened at Street Martin-in-the-Fields by Rev Dick Sheppard. George"s father wrote playfully to Max Beerbohm in November 1936: "Will he, I wonder, become Prime Minister, Poet Laureate, Archbishop of Canterbury, or merely Editor of The Times Literary Supplement? Or Master of The Quorn? Or merely Squire of Heytesbury?" He was noted for his prodigious linguistic ability, learning languages including Serbo-Croat, Hebrew, Aramaic and Klingon. He investigated extraterrestrial phenomena and helped his mother to run a sheep farm on Mull.
Between 1978 and 1980, he published three books, two of which were about his theories on extraterrestrial visitations, and also spoke at conferences on alien phenomena.
He died aged 69 of cancer in Wiltshire in 2006. He is buried on Mull.