A DRAMATIC Cold War mission to Moscow and a close encounter with Colonel Gaddafi’s supporters in Libya are just two highlights from the career of Culham scientist Mike Forrest.

Dr Forrest, from Abingdon, has enjoyed a 50-year career in fusion research, which aims to harness the energy processes powering stars.

His autobiography Lasers Across the Cherry Orchards has been published with the support of former Labour MP Tony Benn, who was Energy Secretary in the 1970s.

Dr Forrest, 76, said Mr Benn telephoned him at home in The Motte, Abingdon, to discuss the book and later sent him a note to wish him luck.

Dr Forrest said: “My life as a scientist started in 1957 on one of the world’s first fusion projects, Zeta at Harwell, progressing to the European Jet machine, which is still taking science forward at Culham Centre for Fusion Energy today.

“I worked with the Libyans, Italians, Portuguese and Swedes on their fusion programmes and was part of a groundbreaking trip to Moscow to work with my Soviet counterparts at the height of the Cold War — a long way from the Welsh Valley I grew up in.”

The father-of-three, who lives with wife Annita, 74, is an expert in laser measurements and picked out his visits to Moscow in the late 1960s as a career highlight.

A team from Culham, the UK’s fusion programme, travelled to Moscow to validate the results of a new machine developed by the Russians, ‘tokamak’, which was to revolutionise the fusion field.

Dr Forrest’s memoirs have attracted the attention of staff from the British Library in London and he has given a series of interviews.

Dr Forrest retired in 1992 but still works as a consultant.

  • The book is published by Tandem Press, and copies are also available from Mostly Books in Abingdon and Blackwell’s in Oxford.