David Tymon, Spacetrack leader at RAF Fylingdales, has been awarded an MBE in the Queen's Birthday Honours list for his services to science.

And he didn't even go to university! His 40-year career at one of the West's most sensitive security installations began when he left Scarborough High School for Boys in the 1960s.

"When I was school-leaving age this really interesting job came up at Fylingdales, though I didn't start out in spacetracking – there weren't many computers about in those days, certainly not giant ones like Fylingdales had, so I jumped at it."

After a few years at the base, where the primary responsibility is to maintain a continuous missile warning capability for the United States and United Kingdom to make sure that a surprise missile attack could not succeed, David was asked to work on the site's secondary mission detecting, identifying and tracking man-made objects in the Earth's orbit – even the ones that are no use to anyone.

Read the full story in Tuesday's Evening News