By Kit Danks

The secrets of Portland's role in the development of sonar systems is set to be revealed in a new book.

Kevin Butcher, from Osmington, has published his first book, charting the development of UK sonar systems on the island - and proceeds are set to be donated to the museum.

He has worked with many major UK defence companies, and originally joined the Admiralty Underwater Weapons Establishment (AUWE) at Southwell in Portland in 1967.

Kevin said: “I’ve recently retired from Thales UK, and I realised when I was talking to people there that a number of them were ex-Royal navy sonar engineers.

“During my fifty-year career, I worked on every sonar system in service with the Royal Navy and export navies, so I realised I probably have the broadest experience of all of these systems – I thought if I don’t get it down, this information could be lost forever.”

In his book, Kevin goes all the way back to 1950s SONAR systems that were in service when he first joined the AUWE and tracks the technological advancements to modern day.

Kevin continued: “During the Cold War when I was working with the AUWE, all of the information was top secret, I wasn’t even allowed to tell my family about it.

“This book isn’t technical, it’s just a timeline that captures all of the systems, where they were built and the people who worked on them – it’s meant for someone with a general interest who would like to learn more about it.”

He explained the reason he started to write the book: “I realised that people have quite an interest in my stories – this time last year I was talking with my family around the dinner table, and my mother mentioned when I was on a submarine that had caught fire.

“I told more and more stories and their jaws were on the floor – they said, ‘you’ve got to write a book!’”

Kevin has decided to donate all the proceeds from the book to Portland Museum.

“I thought this would be a good place for the book to go – it’s local history, it’s something important that came out of the island, and people that worked there don’t talk about it very much.

“I think I’d like to write a memoir next and put all of my dinner table stories about my work on SONAR together – when I revisit it all, I won’t go into technical detail, but I’ll tell it with a bit of humour.”

Kevin’s book Sonar – So Far is on sale at Portland Museum.