1991: REG TURNILL and the SPACE TOMATOES Debacle | BBC News | Weird and Wonderful | BBC Archive

"The suggestion is that if I eat these tomatoes and then go and do my business on Romney marsh, it might destroy Britain's future potato crop." - Reg Turnill.

In 1984, NASA sent millions of tomato seeds into space aboard the Challenger space shuttle, in order to understand how radiation might effect them. Upon their return to Earth, after six years in orbit, the seeds were distributed to schoolchildren across the world.

In Britain, the esteemed former BBC aviation and space correspondent Reg Turnill secured thousands of the space seeds for Blue Peter viewers to grow. The Ministry of Agriculture, however, has ordered anybody who has grown space tomatoes to destroy their crops at once, as the seeds were not granted an import licence.

Mr Turnhill is having none of it, and now the Ministry of Agriculture has dispatched one of their "chief plant inspectors" to Reg's greenhouse.

Originally broadcast 5 July, 1991.

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