Surviving a nuclear nightmare

Fourteen are aimed at Central London, four are aimed at Cheltenham at the Government's communication headquarters, while the last two are, chillingly, heading for Fylingdales itself.

Within minutes further missile tracks are plotted, with rockets heading for RAF Fairford, Filton, near Bristol and the Chemical Weapon Research Establishment at Porton Down in Wiltshire.

Minutes later, the North Sea is filling the crater that was once London, one nuclear weapon deton-ates above the runway at Fairford, wiping out the United States Air Force's airborne deterrent.

The other weapon also aimed at Fairford, goes awry and detonates a few thousand feet above Blunsdon, destroying a large proportion of Swindon's northern suburbs along with it.

This nightmarish scenario was the groundwork for an exercise, which took place in 1965.

Known as Operation Grass Seed, it predicted that 130 nuclear weapons would fall on Britain each with a warhead of two megatons, the equivalent of two million tons of TNT in a short period of time.

Casualties would be enormous. Even in 1965 it was expected that 10,000 in Swindon would be killed even without a direct hit.

The 60s and 70s were a dangerous time. The 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis had seen the biggest standoff be-tween the nuclear superpowers.

The crisis was ended with a political solution within hours of the beginning of an American air campaign to remove the missiles from Cuba.

The Cuban Missile Crisis proved that a political solution may not always be viable, and that one-day the superpowers may be forced to rely on their deterrent to solve the problems.

So Western governments began a huge project to ensure shelter for the continuation of government and life as a whole in the event of nuclear with Wiltshire one of the focal points of this project.

One of the most interesting aspects of project was undertaken by Thames Water in the early 80s when Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher announced that utility companies should insure that even in the event of nuclear war, that the populations should still receive basic services.

For water companies the require-ments was that every person should have access to five litres of fresh water a day.

All the water boards and water companies built a number of underground Nuclear Emergency Control Bunkers in their regions.

To ensure the continuation of water supply to the Swindon area, Thames Water con-structed a bunker situated next to the A419 road, near Broad Blunsdon waterworks in around 1986.

Nick McCamley, author of the book, Cold War Secret Nuclear Bunkers, and member of the Subterranea Britannica Society has visited several of these bunkers located up and down the country described the sort of layout one would expect in a bunker of this type.

"Many of these water-board bunkers were built to a generic design. They were built to house around 10 to 15 personnel and were designed to the very highest standards and are surprisingly large measuring around 1,200 square feet."

At first appearance the bunker simply looks like another reservoir, however, inspection of one end of the mound reveals a lightweight steel door, concealing a huge blast door. Behind this would have been airlock equipped with a decontamination shower to remove any radioactive materials.

Inside would have been a small operations room and the facilities to cater for several personnel, including a small but well-equipped kitchen, and toilet facilities. Air conditioning was also provided. A small concrete louvered ventilation shaft rising from the top of the mound a small generator, which would have provided electrical power.

Communications would have been provided by radio and telephone with the systems in-cased in a heavily protected box, known as a Faraday Cage to safeguard against short-circuiting by electro-magnetic pulse of an atomic blast.

Nick said: "Although these bunkers were very strong they were not necessarily designed to protect against a direct hit. Instead they were built to provide shelter away from heavy fallout radiation and protection from the heat waves from an atomic blast which could raise the temperature by around 100 degrees. The grass covered mound was used to deflect both the blast waves and heat waves

The water-board bunkers are not uncommon and many are located up and down the country, with Yorkshire Water owning around a dozen in its region alone. Many water bunkers were planned by their respective water companies, although many were not completed due to cost over-runs.

Nick explained, "These bunkers are among the last generation of bunkers to be built, and so they are among the strongest, being built to Swiss standards."

Thames Water was unwilling to discuss details about the Blunsdon Bunker, saying: "We are unable to discuss such matters in the light of last year's events."

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