ARE there any former Winfrith workers out there who can help Looking Back piece together the history of an important part of the history of Winfrith UKAEA site?

Weymouth photographer Idris Martin has been in touch with some details of the now-decommissioned Dragon Reactor which his father Idris Snr worked on in the 1950s.

Idris Jnr was born in Nottingham and moved to Dorset in the 50s when his father was employed by UKAEA, the atomic energy body.

He remembered: “Although there wasn’t all the health and safety fuss in the 1950s as there is now, the people at Winfrith thought they needed someone with First Aid expertise on the site.

“During the war, Dad had been in the Royal Army Medical Corps and was also a member of St John Ambulance, so he got a job at Winfrith and we moved down here in about 1957 when the Dragon Project was being built.

“It was a multi-national initiative, really huge, but when I was working at Winfrith in the 1970s, they were already shutting it down. The Dorset Police HQ is now where the Dragon admin office stood.”

Once they moved to Dorset, the Martins were housed in pre-fab accommodation at Littlemoor, near Weymouth and Idris sent us a picture of his mother Martha outside their home.

He said: “The houses were built just after the war for the families who had been bombed out and were demolished in the late 1960s. They were not much more than mobile homes really, with two bedrooms and I think they were the first places you could buy that had built-in cupboards.

“I suspect they were full of asbestos, but they were definitely ahead of their time. In fact, I think there are still some up in London that have had a preservation order slapped on them because of the design.”

When the young Idris came to Weymouth he was enrolled at St. Nicholas Primary School, which was at that time set on Dorchester Road just south of the Littlemoor Road junction and is now a private house.

He sent us a picture of his class with as many of the names as he could remember and later spoke to his old school pal Ritchie Riggs, who helped fill in the blanks.

They are: Terry Banger, Keith Summers, Chris James, Graham Frampton, Ritchie Riggs. Stephen Evans, Laurence Russell Middle Row: ?, Philip Stainer, Nicky Spence, Carol Wilshire, ?, Susan Hare, Peter Miles? Gerald Groom, Terry Frost, Tony White, ?.

Front Row Seated: ?, ?, Karen Brawley, Sandra Gill, Karen Jollife, Helen Miles, Helen Hallett, Sandra Machin.

Front row: Keith Bartlett, Idris Martin, Gordon Carter.

The fourth photo sent in by Idris, who now works for Dorset and Wilts RFU, is of a group of young Rugby players and was taken 15 or 20 years ago.

He said: “Weymouth Rugby Club took a youth team squad to Twickenham for an England Wales game and as we were queuing up at the turnstiles one of my rugby heroes, Wales scrum half Gareth Edwards came strolling past.

“I introduced him to the lads and most of them didn’t have clue who he was. However, he was happy to meet the lads and pose for a picture, in fact a perfect gentleman.”

Thank you Idris for the photos and memories – if anyone can expand on any of them, please do get in touch.