A MALVERN-based science writer has made a programme for BBC Radio 4 about QinetiQ and its predecessors.

The programme is one of a series called Future Labs, written by David Robertson who also presents the programmes.

Mr Roberston produced a 50-minute Channel 4 film called Birth of the Smart Bomber last year about the Oboe blind bombing system. He also created The Magic Ear exhibition about the history of radar.

"Our programmes are about institutions where scientists have done world-class research," he said.

"For the TRE/QinetiQ programme, we tell again the story of how radar was turned from a bright idea into an operational system at amazing speed and at how it almost certainly saved the country from defeat and invasion."

Much of this work was done at Malvern College, which TRE took over in May 1942. Interviews for the programme were conducted there, as well as QinetiQ's present home in St Andrews Road.

"By a wonderful stroke of fortune we were in Malvern when Sir Bernard Lovell came to open a new building that has been named after him," said Mr Robertson.

"The QinetiQ programme starts with an extract from that ceremony and we also include an interview I conducted with Sir Bernard, at Jodrell Bank radio telescope, about his time at TRE."

It also features Dr Ernest Putley, who was at TRE during the Second World War and is an expert on its history, Professor Chris Baynham, who ran the establishment in the 1970s, QinetiQ chief executive Sir John Chisholm, head of sensors and electronics Derek Barnes and several current scientists including Roger Appleby and Peter Dennis.

The programme on QinetiQ is begin broadcast on Wednesday, June 4, at 8pm. The other programmes deal with Bell Labs in the USA (June 11) and the Cavendish Laboratory in Cambridge (June 18).