NOT much has stayed with me from my school science lessons, I’m ashamed to say.

In biology, I was the squeamish one who hid in the loos while the rest of the class inflated the lungs of a dissected rabbit with a vacuum cleaner or the boys chased the girls around with locusts in their hands. I’m sure you’ll forgive me.

And you won’t be surprised that I failed the O-level, because I then had no notes from which to revise.

I didn’t like chemistry either, because one teacher was always looking down the front of the girls’ dresses as we leaned over our Bunsen burners, while our physics master was simply an incomprehensible eccentric from the planet Boffin.

Trying to turn me into a scientist was a predictable waste of time.

Equally futile was the way we clung to hope that the government would respect and protect our scientific community and realise the folly of shunting off 600 jobs from Porton Down to Essex.

I suspect that the final decision was taken months ago but that the announcement was postponed until after the election for political reasons.

Now, when we’re all preoccupied with Jeremy Corbyn, Syrian refugees and party conferences, it’s as good a time as any to release unwelcome news in a solid Tory constituency.

In Harlow, where unemployment is higher and voters have proved more fickle in the past, I’m sure it’s gone down very well.

Our MP John Glen campaigned tirelessly for the facility to be retained here, and credit to him for that.

He must have felt sick as a pig injected with some experimental vaccine when his own side let him down so badly.

Will there be a brain drain, with our more highly qualified residents forced to take their talents elsewhere?

Wiltshire Council leader Jane Scott says not in overall terms, because Dstl will be moving 650 jobs here from Kent.

So it’s more of a scientific hokey-cokey, if you like. You put your Dstl in, you put your PHE out, shake them all about and the result, in terms of employment statistics, is “no change”.

Plus, we’re assured, it’s still full steam ahead for the Porton science park project, intended to create 2,000 more jobs. Let’s hope it does.

n Well done to Wiltshire Council’s southern area planning committee for saying no to a hotel and “drive-thru” on the tiny wild plot between Tesco and the Southampton Road.

We need a properly thought-through and enforceable community-led plan to create an unspoilt green gateway to our historic city instead of having to constantly fend off commercial developers.

anneriddle36@gmail.com