Jodrell Bank creator shuffles off

THE man who invented one of Britain’s most popular euphemisms for masturbation has died aged 98.

Astronomer and physicist Sir Bernard Lovell designed and built the Jodrell Bank radio telescope – which has been rhyming slang for a “w*nk” ever since it was erected in the Fifties.

Professor Brian Cox, who knew Sir Bernard, said he was “an inquisitive scientist all the way”.

A book of condolence has been opened at the observatory’s Discovery Centre.

Sir Bernard was born in Oldland Common, Glos, in 1913 and studied at the Bristol University before joining the University of Manchester’s Department of Physics in 1936.

Sputnik

Following the war, he returned to the university and set about planning the observatory at the heart of the glorious Cheshire countryside.

His iconic 249ft telescope was completed in 1957. Within days of it becoming operational, it tracked the rocket that carried Sputnik 1 into orbit.

Barclays Bank and the J Arthur Rank Association last night joined in the tributes.