THANKS to Peter Fry for visiting the Looking Back offices with this memory of former Tory minister Cecil Parkinson, who recently passed away.

The Conservative grandee, who served in a number of cabinet posts in Margaret Thatcher's governments, passed away on January 22 after a long battle with cancer.

He is seen in this photo from 1987 at the inauguration of the Winfrith Petroleum Technology Business Centre.

Peter said: "When the Winfrith atomic energy establishment needed to diversify with the decommissioning of its reactors, it set up a team in May 1978 to support the Department of Energy in managing a programme of development into methods of recovering oil from UK offshore reservoirs.

"Four years later the Under Secretary of State for Energy, Alick Buchanan-Smith, announced the setting up of the Winfrith Petroleum Business Centre to coordinate the specialist services and research and development capabilities at the establishment.

"This centre was formally inaugurated four months later by the then Secretary of State for Energy, Cecil Parkinson, who commented that some project funding was provided by his Offshore Energy Technology Board."

After restructuring two years later AEA Petroleum Services was formed.

On his visit to Winfrith, Lord Parkinson said the image and culture was 'building a bridge between business and industry on the one hand and top class scientific and technical resources on the other.'