swamps and over mountains and anywhere where conventional transport was difficult. The idea was never used. After World War II After World War II, Pyke's inventions continued. 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 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, and continued to both write and broadcast them. He campaigned against the death penalty, and for government support of UNICEF. Death and legacy On the evening of Saturday 21 February 1948 in Steele's Road, Hampstead, Pyke shaved his beard and consumed a bottleful of sleeping pills. His landlady found his body the following Monday morning. The coroner gave a verdict of suicide at a moment of mental unbalance. Before consuming the pills, he had written private letters that made it clear that his death was premeditated. An obituary in The Times praised him and lamented his passing, beginning with the words: John Bernal, who knew Pyke well, wrote: See also Magnus Pyke, his first cousin Notes References Bibliography Further reading . . External links . . Brief biography and list of inventions. – Habakkuk project. . . The Papers of Geoffrey Pyke held at Churchill Archives Centre 1893 births 1948 suicides Activists against antisemitism English atheists British people of World War II Suicides in Hampstead English memoirists British escapees Escapees from German detention Drug-related suicides in England World War I civilian detainees held by Germany British Jews Jewish atheists Alumni of Pembroke College, Cambridge 20th-century British inventors 1948 deaths