News & Events
Sixty Years of ADS at Harwell
13 January 2009
The Dosimetry Service at Harwell has been providing a continuous service for sixty years, since the first dosemeter was issued in July 1948. This landmark was celebrated by an ‘open day’ held in Harwell B351. This event incorporated visits and demonstrations at the various Dosimetry facilities; poster and multi-media displays to present the current work of the service and the way that the service has evolved over the years; a photographic exhibition of the early years of the service; and a reception lunch with an address by Richard Birch, Director for Health Physics and Assurance.
More than forty invited guests attended this event, representing some of the current clients of the service: including UKAEA, HMRC, JCI, NNL and Scientifics Ltd. While it was very useful and productive for both the dosimetry staff and their clients to meet on this informal basis, it was especially pleasing that many former dosimetry staff also attended. In particular we were delighted to welcome Len Peaple, who started work in the service in June 1948, just 3 weeks before the first dosemeter was issued, and spent his entire working career within the service, finally retiring in 1984. This continuity of service is a characteristic for many of the former and current staff - the post of Dosimetry Records Officer has been held by only three staff over the entire sixty-year period: firstly by Betty Turner (who, unfortunately, was not able to attend), then by Jean Greenough and currently by Lesley Reeves.
It is estimated that this gathering of former dosimetry staff represented a total of nearly six hundred years of accumulated experience, knowledge and expertise within the field of dosimetry. A number of these former staff achieved international recognition for their work, including Howard Dellafield (neutron and criticality accident dosimetry), Tony Gibson (internal dosimetry), Mike Marshall (air sampling and thermo-luminescent dosimetry), John Douglas (thermo-luminescent dosimetry) and Kevin Harrison (neutron dosimetry). Although the technology has changed over the years, the principles and developments that were pioneered by our former colleagues still form the foundations for the services provided today.