You don't have to be famous to be influential. You don't even have to be reasonably well known.

This is particularly true in financial circles, where sometimes anonymity is an advantage. But it can also hold good in areas where the impact of someone's life is all too apparent.

Take Vladimir Zworykin, for example. Or John Bardeen, Walter Brattain and William Shockley.

Zworykin, a Russian emigre living in America, was the man who developed the first practical electronic TV camera, making him - and not John Logie Baird - the true father of television. Baird's mechanical system worked, but was the technological equivalent of a food processor powered by a diesel engine.

Bardeen, Brattain and Shockley shared the Nobel Prize for Physics for their invention of the transistor - probably the most influential development of the century just departed. None of them are household names.

They came to mind last week when scanning the past to find the Greatest Bradfordian. We settled on Sir Edward Victor Appleton, physicist and the city's only Nobel Laureate.

He topped the unofficial poll but was probably the least-known of the four finalists - J B Priestley, Delius and David Hockney were the other contenders.

The choice found favour with Prof Peter S Excell, Professor of Applied Electromagnetics at Bradford University, who was kind enough to write endorsing Vic Appleton as our greatest son.

Prof Excell points out that Appleton's work on the earth's nearer environment made him one of the first space scientists, using radio waves long before rockets were invented.

"He created the new field of study called 'solar-terrestrial physics', which is concerned with the delicate relationship between the earth and the radiation from the Sun, and this is still a very lively and exciting field of research," says Prof Excell.

"He enthusiastically supported the launching of satellites to enable this region to be researched more thoroughly than was possible with radio waves and in recent years a series of very sophisticated satellites has been launched for this purpose".

Prof Excell looks forward to the launching of the Cluster mission, consisting of four satellites, later this year.

These should show the way particles from the Sun - which affect telecommunications, electrical systems and space missions - are influences by the earth and its magnetic field.

"The satellites' mission represents the future of hi-tech Appletoniana and illustrates how relevant the work of our Nobel Prize winner still is in the present day."

Sadly Appleton still has few memorials in his home town.

"I have been researching Appleton's life and work, and trying to raise local interest in him, since 1988: it has been an uphill task!

" In that time I have tried, without success, to have a statue erected and to establish a museum or Science Centre based on his work and I must say I found the wall of indifference that I encountered very frustrating," says Prof Excell.

There is a plaque at Bradford College, a small memorial at Hanson School, where Appleton was educated, and a few other reminders.

But the professor would - quite rightly - like something more substantial. He raises the idea of a Sir Edward Appleton Society to act as a charitable trust and safeguard for the remaining relics of the scientist's life, and with a view to preserving the Wingfield Street house in Barkerend in which the young Vic grew up.

"A previous attempt to persuade the Council to place this under a preservation order was unsuccessful and I think it might be time to revisit the issue," says Prof Excell.

A new century certainly is a good time to look again at ways of remembering the man who did so much to shape the last one.

l Anyone interested in forming a Sir Edward Appleton Society should write to Professor Peter Excell at the Electronic Engineering Department at Bradford University. Or you can e-mail him at p.s.excell@bradford.ac.uk

The horns of a dilemma

Hunting is back in the news, particularly hunting with dogs and on horseback. It didn't bother Bradford folk in 1909 - and they didn't need dogs or horses, either.

For a few days in October that year, Bradford saw a number of stags pursued on foot - and one nearly came to a sticky end.

Lidget Green, Whetley Hill, Four Lane Ends and Allerton all produced reports of stags taking the suburban air. They weren't particularly timid, what's more.

At Lidget Green a male deer with a fine head of antlers was seen in Princeville Road. It ran off and cleared a wall in Ingleby Road - but not before one enterprising soul tried to stop it. The animal put down its head and went for him and he very wisely stepped aside.

The stag headed off in the direction of Allerton. It was seen the next day grazing with a local farmer's cattle.

Earlier another was spotted near Dumb Mills in Frizinghall and this one was more amenable. It was stalked for a while but ran off, only to be seen in Girlington a couple of days later.

This time a hero was found who was prepared to tackle the newcomer. Approaching it carefully he found it waiting for him, head down and nostrils dilated.

He whacked it over the head with a stick and felled it. While it lay unconscious he managed to tie its legs and it was carted off to a stable in Globe Fold, Whetley Hill.

The police were sent for but they hadn't a clue what to do with the animal. Nobody knew where it had come from - Bolton Abbey, Bingley and even Studley Royal were suggested.

Its fate remains a mystery - though it may have survived. Its captor was a local greengrocer.

Had he been a butcher, it would have probably ended up in his window, jointed...

Converted for the new archive on 30 June 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.