THE INVENTOR grandfather of a Petersfield man is to have a big screen film made of his life – which although cut short by war still saw him credited with inventing stereo sound and acknowledged as being instrumental in the development of television.

It has also been announced that Alan Dower Blumlein is to receive a posthumous Grammy award for his work inventing the stereo sound system.

Alan Blumlein, who died in 1942 aged 39, was the father of Simon Blumlein, who for many years had a music shop in Dragon Street and still lives in the town, and grandfather to James Blumlein, who also lives in Petersfield.

James said: “Not many people know my grandfather invented the stereo sound system, and also pioneered the Marconi-EMI television system which was adopted by the BBC and was the basis for TV broadcasting until the switch to digital.”

At the time of his death during World War Two, Alan, an electrical engineer, had filed 121 patents, virtually all relating to inventions in sound reproduction and television broadcasting.

But outside his family Alan Blumlein, an electrical engineer born in 1903, remained virtually unknown until recently – in part because his death during the Second World War was hushed up.

By 1942 he and a team of scientists were working on a top secret an airborne radar system.

But on June 7, 1942, a Halifax bomber he was in crashed in flames near Welsh Bicknor, in Herefordshire.

All 11 passengers and crew, including other top scientists, were killed.

The project was so important the crash was hushed up, and the work completed in strict secrecy by RAF engineers.

But now Alan is to be honoured with a Grammy, nominated by Universal Music Group, which in 2012 merged with EMI, for whom Alan worked until just before his death.

It will be presented to family members at a ceremony in Los Angeles late this year.

Simon Blumlein said of the Grammy: “It is a great honour for my father and the Blumlein family. We’re immensely proud. He’s always been held in the highest esteem by recording engineers and so to now receive this from the wider music industry is simply wonderful.”

And Mr Blumlein’s life will also be the subject of ’an as-yet untitled film project,’ said Universal.

Universal boss Sir Lucian Grainge said: “Alan Dower Blumlein and his prolific period of invention whilst at EMI, not only transformed audio and music recording technology, but also helped shape modern media communications for generations to come through his pioneering work in television.”