As these words are written, I have no idea if they will be read. Like the offices of the
Scottish Review, I live a few miles from Coulport where Britain stores its arsenal of nuclear warheads. It seems reasonable to suspect that Vladimir Putin would eliminate them early on if he descends into a nuclear war with the West.
For someone who, as a child, lay awake not sleeping atop a wooden trunk in a central room during the Second World War air raids, and as a young man, lay awake hanging on the words of American broadcasters during the Cuban missile crisis, the fear of war is all too real.
Coulport used to be a summer holiday retreat for wealthy Glaswegians. Some £2bn has created in the hillside above the original village up to 16 reinforced concrete bunkers harbouring nuclear warheads for the Trident submarine fleet. Over 200 warheads are currently known to be lying there. In an exquisite phrase reminiscent of home improvement, the warheads need to 'refurbished' and shuttle several times a year from Coulport to Berkshire and back. The road convoy is a sight to chill the stoutest heart.
If Putin pushes the button, things will not go well around here. At Hiroshima, Akiko Takakura was 300 metres from where the bomb fell in 1945. She survived with minor injuries because she was inside the concrete built Bank of Japan. Outside, folk lasted two seconds. Now we are dealing with bombs of unimaginable power which would come in clusters. A helpful map on Wikipedia indicates instant death at up to eight kilometres, and a 300 miles a second blast of wind. Thermal radiation of neutron and gamma rays will follow. Most of Scotland will not be worth bothering about.
There will be an outer ring of peripheral fires which will need to be put out. As a National Serviceman, I spent a jolly final month learning how to be an auxiliary fireman to deal with these fires. I still have my rail warrant to pay for travel to a 'selected rendezvous point', although my uniform may not fit too well and my ability to hold onto a 'branch' (the metal bit on the business end of a hose that compresses the water into a jet) may be impaired. Even then, many of us ribbed our firemen instructors about the likelihood of us surviving to do the job. Living near Coulport makes those jokes all too sanguine.
I suppose it is futile to worry. Early on, I came to the conclusion that anyone who wanted to rule a country was mad. (Even General de Gaulle rued the impossibility of governing a country with 246 varieties of cheese.) Now the madmen really are in charge. Hold on to your hats...
David Donald
To mask or not to mask? That is the question. Initially, I thought I had become so accustomed to wearing one that lifting the requirement to wear them – with the option to do so should you want – would mean I would carry on doing so. So far I have escaped Covid, touch wood, so why take risks? But it has started to slip already.
Life in London has, in many ways, returned to normal although restaurants do seem to close much earlier – the go and eat something after a show is no longer possible. But the rush hour is back and if ever there was a place where a mask is a good idea, it is the face stuck in somebody else's armpit world of the tube train. However, on the trains out of rush hour, nobody is bothering and on the buses some do but most don't.
I found myself clutching my mask in a theatre the other night, which had a notice on the way in asking the audience to wear them thinking I would put it on when the play started. I was early and only a few people were seated so it seemed pointless to put the suffocating thing on. The auditorium filled, however, and very few people bothered to put them on. When it was time to start, some front of house person came on and asked us to wear them. As the lights went down, at least three quarters of the audience had not obliged – and I was one of them.
It really does look as if people have decided it has become something like bad flu to be endured – a trivial reaction given what is happening elsewhere. However, the relief from those endless appearances by Chris Whitty and the TV news medical men is overwhelming. Except their place has been taken by people reporting from Ukraine.
As for the play, it was
Henry V in a production which was in modern dress and was about an invasion in pursuit of a distinctly dodgy claim of ownership, which had the audience being straffed by machine gun carrying troops, as projected explosions erupted all over the back wall. It had a chilling impact.
Bill Russell
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