I was listening to a programme on Radio 4 earlier this evening about the role
of the BBC during the cold war. We were told that there was a plan in place to evacuate a core of staff to a secure bunker where they would continue (all 450 of them in 3 shifts of 150 people) to broadcast to the surviving population. Part of the instructions issued to the civil populace was to take a battery powered transistor radio into the space under the stairs where they were to hide once war began. The BBC also supplied the camera link between 10 Downing Street and the nuclear submarine to prove that it was Harold Wilson and the designated naval officer giving the order to launch the nuclear missiles and not some madman Dr Strangelove figure who had burst into the Cabinet Room. All this reminded me that my uncle, a village policeman in Hertfordshire at this time had installed in his office, a bizarre piece of equipment that emitted a continuous bleep. He was under instructions to open an envelope containing instructions should the tone of the bleep change. From time to time announcements came from this loudspeaker to check the equipment was in order. What one person in a tiny village could do should the warning be sounded I dread to think. What were the chances that my uncle wouldn't be out catching criminals or sleeping at the momentous time when the third world war began? Of course it didn't happen......
of the BBC during the cold war. We were told that there was a plan in place to evacuate a core of staff to a secure bunker where they would continue (all 450 of them in 3 shifts of 150 people) to broadcast to the surviving population. Part of the instructions issued to the civil populace was to take a battery powered transistor radio into the space under the stairs where they were to hide once war began. The BBC also supplied the camera link between 10 Downing Street and the nuclear submarine to prove that it was Harold Wilson and the designated naval officer giving the order to launch the nuclear missiles and not some madman Dr Strangelove figure who had burst into the Cabinet Room. All this reminded me that my uncle, a village policeman in Hertfordshire at this time had installed in his office, a bizarre piece of equipment that emitted a continuous bleep. He was under instructions to open an envelope containing instructions should the tone of the bleep change. From time to time announcements came from this loudspeaker to check the equipment was in order. What one person in a tiny village could do should the warning be sounded I dread to think. What were the chances that my uncle wouldn't be out catching criminals or sleeping at the momentous time when the third world war began? Of course it didn't happen......
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