Hermitage

REP: Tom Beels tom@beelsandco.com DISTRIBUTOR: Faith Hervey

Thank you to everyone who attended Alan’s funeral on 20 December, and to all who joined us online. We especially thank the staff of Grovelands Care Home, Yeovil where he was very well cared for in the last few weeks of his life, Easons Funeral Service and Yeovil Crematorium for their help and advice, Rev Tony Gilbert and Rev Richard Kirlew who took the service, and Rev Graham Perryman for the music.

Donations are still invited in memory of Alan for Scripture Union International, Trinity House, Opal Court, Opal Drive, Fox Milne, Milton Keynes MK15 0DS, and for St. Mary’s Church, by cheque to Hermitage PCC, c/o Three Valleys Team Benefice Office, Jubilee Hall, Church Street, Yetminster DT9 6LG.

Thank you all.

Kristina, Sheena, James, Thomas and the family

Photo: Dave Whiteoak

Alan Ward, Nuclear Physicist and Grandfather of Hermitage

Our father, Alan Ward, who died in early December 2021 aged 96, was a physicist who profoundly influenced science education in Africa and was also a longstanding and much-loved resident of Hermitage.

Born in Woodford, Essex, Alan moved to Chichester and read physics at Birmingham. He completed a PhD in 1949, after which he was sent by the Atomic Energy Research Establishment to study Thorotrast radioactive poisoning in Denmark. He married Honor Shedden, also a physicist, in 1950.

The following year he took up a lectureship at the University College of the Gold Coast (now the University of Ghana), and set up a radioactivity laboratory, looking into the toxicity of Strontium-90, an isotope of concern in fallout from nuclear weapons. He built an international network of scientists involved in the peaceful uses of radioactivity.

He and Honor needed a UK base and they bought a cottage in Hermitage in the mid 1950s, returning to it for every leave. It was let to local families and missionaries while they were in Africa, and was looked after by a close friend in the village, Mrs Joyce Chutter.

When France set off an experimental nuclear device in Algeria in 1960, Alan discovered radioactive fallout in Ghana, raising international concern. In the early 1960s Alan moved to the University of Zambia, founding a physics department there. He then moved to the University of Botswana and Swaziland, working there until 1986 when he retired with Honor back to the UK. Alan and Honor both played an active role in developing science education in Africa and in 1976, Alan was awarded the OBE.

During Alan’s long and happy retirement in Hermitage he continued to teach physics, first in Weymouth, then for the Open University and the University of the Third Age. Ahead of his time, he installed a Ground Source Heat Pump and solar panels, supported the Battery Vehicle Society, and built electric vehicles both for the road and for his grandchildren to drive in the garden. He and Honor supported many village activities and St. Mary’s, the local church, and started the children’s Wednesday Club in Yetminster.

Honor died in 2016. Alan is survived by their children, Kristina, Sheena, James and Thomas, nine grandchildren and 14 great-grandchildren and is sadly missed by his family and many friends.