During the early stages of the Second World War[4] he moved with his family to Bournemouth on the south coast where "tip and run" German aircraft raids introduced him to machine gun fire and air-dropped bombs.

This work brought him into contact with some prominent physicians, pathologists, surgeons and biochemists and one of the latter, Dr (now Professor) Michael Crawford of the Nuffield Institute of Comparative Medicine, offered him a bench in his department which specialised in the study of the chemistry and nutritional implications of fatty acids in the diet.

Unable to raise funds sufficient to enable him to continue his research, Alford moved from central London to Ham in its western suburbs.

He experimented with the use of elongated gas cylinders, filled with liquid carbon dioxide and provided with an axial tube containing a small explosive charge, as a penetrative disruptor of potentially buried packages.

In 1974 a visit by the Security Service resulted in Alford being offered a job as a part-time conference interpreter by the MoD using his knowledge of both languages and explosives.

Other inventions were made in the course of this research but eventually Alford received a letter, which he kept with pride, effectively ordering him to stop having any more new ideas since he did not work for Fort Halstead.

In mid-1981 he was approached by a retired army officer and his colleague and they formed a new company, Alflex, whose first operation was participation in the record breaking expedition to the Barents Sea which recovered 93 per cent of the approximately five tonnes of gold ingots from the wreck of HMS Edinburgh.

He carried out many explosive demolition operations on such steel and concrete structures as bridges, industrial buildings and, very sadly from a historical point of view, the blast furnaces at the Consett Iron Company which closed in 1980.

The old manually operated iron penstock gates beneath the Royal Dockyard in Portsmouth and Gibraltar Harbour were gently blasted into removable fragments and replaced by modern hydraulic structures.

Subsequent operational work carried out by Alford included marine salvage during the "Tanker War" in the Persian Gulf (1984/8), including the sectioning of large oil tankers whose hulls had been blown open by Iran's Revolutionary Guards and air attacks; this work was carried out under the Iranian flag in the uncomfortably close company of the Revolutionary Guard's speedboats with their heavy machine guns and RPGs.

When the Vietnam war finally stopped, the huge number of bombs which had been dropped on Indo-China became apparent, as did the very high proportion which had not exploded as they hit the trees and soft soil.

Accompanied by his son Roland, they tested the usefulness of the precursor of the Vulcan at rendering safe the larger bombs without destroying for a second or third time the village which had been targeted during the war.

This led to the production of the Vulcan itself and further verification and instructional visits to Laos followed and valuable data was gathered which contributed to the device going into use in many countries.

Alford was invited to attempt the cutting operations of the deformed hulls which, by the time he got on the scene were either floating or were run up on the shore of Sirri Island.

The primitive, user-filled charges proved themselves in cutting the substantial steel hull in air and under water and, not surprisingly, requirements for larger quantities for further wrecked tankers soon arrived and were flown out.

This was quickly shown to provide a simple and reliable means of bringing about relatively gentle deflagration of small and large steel cased munitions with only a low probability of causing detonation.

VCLMS was developed to support Mine Countermining (MCM) activities and the safe disposal of such conventional munitions found on the sea bed as World War II bombs.

Sidney had been looking forward to the event for several months, and due to COVID the ceremony was hosted on teams where some of his oldest and dearest friends were able to see and speak to him.