The dish that inspired my poem is, of course, the Jodrell Bank radio telescope, a project which began in 1945, the year in which I was born.
A physicist from Manchester University, Bernard Lovell, wanted to see if radar, used to great effect during the 2nd World War, could be used to detect cosmic rays.
The electric trams in Manchester caused interference, so a location away from the city was needed. The university’s botany department owned land between Chelford and Holmes Chapel in Cheshire, and so it was there that Lovell set up his equipment – much of it ex-army surplus – and rather than detecting cosmic rays, he found meteors.
Still, it was a good beginning, and the Jodrell Bank Experimental Station, as it was known, was at the leading edge of the new science of radio astronomy.
The first dish, erected in 1947, used wire mesh and went on to detect the Andromeda galaxy 2.5 million light years from earth.
The project to build a larger, 250-feet diameter dish, began in 1952 and almost foundered because of financial problems. But the launch of the world’s first artificial satellite, the Soviet Union’s Sputnik, in 1957, was just the boost the project needed. As the largest radio telescope of its kind, the Mark 1 was able to track the rocket that launched Sputnik, and so became a vital part of the West’s early warning defence system. It would later play a part in the USA’s Apollo 11 moon landing towards the end of the following decade.
Sir Bernard was knighted in 1961 and died in 2012. But what a legacy he left! Jodrell Bank is now a tourist attraction as well as playing a leading role in the development of radio astronomy.
The radio telescope he helped bring into being is named after him. It stands on the Cheshire plain which stretches from the Mersey river valley south into Shropshire, and is a landmark visible from many miles away.
I have dedicated my poem to Sir Bernard and all those who worked with him.