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Published: September 13th 2017
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By the fifteenth time I’d been asked if we were there yet and having handed over the third snack of the morning as well as an argument over the fact that we were passing Newcastle Under Lyme which didn’t mean we had gone the wrong way and that no we weren’t heading North, I was delighted to pull onto the car park and let my small friend race across the tarmac to greet his bestiest friend Sion. Woolly says – as soon as the door opened I shot out leaving a trail of pistachio shells behind me and into the welcoming paws of the best sheep in the world. With so much to tell each other I barely noticed the entrance to the secret bunker and our rendezvous for the day, I had however done my research and happily informed Sion of the history of Hack Green Secret Bunker which having found it meant it wasn’t really a secret at all! First used in World War II, when a Starfish site was established at Hack Green with the purpose of confusing Luftwaffe bombers looking for the vital railway junction at Crewe, the site was modernised in the 1950’s as part of the ROTOR project. This included the provision of a substantial semi-sunk reinforced concrete bunker or blockhouse (type R6) one of 17 sites designed to enable government to continue in the aftermath of a major nuclear attack on the UK.
As we entered through the blast doors I felt a chill down my spine and my fur stood upright as my tummy let out a rumble. Knowing that we wouldn’t get anywhere until he had been fed, Jen, Glenn (Sion’s carers) and I made our choices from the limited selection on offer in the NAFFI and left the boys to catch up whilst we discussed our travel plans and what we had been doing over the last few months. Having removed the sticky footprints from the table and thanked the nice lady for allowing them to cover the table and toys with jam we followed the excited pair into the first corridor. Woolly says – There was so much to see and as we considered the first room and the development of radar I couldn’t believe how much was still in place from the original site, it looked almost as if everyone had just popped out for lunch! As we raced in and out of rooms that were filled with the technology that had once protected our lives, Jen told us of her time working on the switchboard in a similar set up in Wrexham….who knew that Jen was trained to fight the cold war on her own!
It was fascinating to be with someone who knew what the equipment was and how it had worked when the station was operational as well as the feeling of being enclosed as the doors shut behind you at the start of a shift. Woolly says – I couldn’t have been happier, as Sion and I sent morse code to each other and quivered in fear as a blast went off overhead and the lights flashed above us, there was just so much to see. The corridors seemed to go on for ever and a selection of Russian uniforms and equipment gave us a fascinating insight into how the cold war had operated for them, we both spotted a large Russian rat, having tried to out stare him and lost we reserved into the corridor and left him to his guard duty. The next room offered huge banks of computers and a rather strange Bikini alert sign, did the serving officers have to wear their swimwear? Was there a beach or pool nearby? Wasn’t it rather cold to be unclothed down here!
The wonderful Jen was able to tell us that the BikiniI state was established in May 1970 and had been an indicator used by the UK Ministry of Defence to warn of non-specific forms of threat, including civil disorder, terrorism or war. Signs giving the current alert state were displayed at the entrance to government buildings and military installations. According to the Ministry of Defence, the word bikini was randomly selected by a computer and I guess you can’t get more random than that! Woolly says – The next room had been set aside for the BBC to be able to broadcast to the survivors of nuclear attack although they wouldn’t have known if anyone was alive and listening, they had thought it important to have contact with the outside world in the event devastation. A black and white TV showed us what to do in the event of a bomb coming our way which was to stay inside, I could have worked that out myself, I mean who in their right mind would go outside with a threat like that!
The corridors were now lined with pictures from the devastating attacks on Hiroshima and Nagasaki during the final stages of World War II, horrendous to see what had become of the cities and impossible to understand what the people must have gone through. Woolly says – the humans seemed to be dallying so Sion and I entered one of the biggest rooms on the tour to be confronted with immense banks of flashing lights and the ominous announcement that we were at defcon 1, I gulped and glanced over at Sion who was attempting to hide in a corner, the words ‘this is not a practice’ started to make me feel dizzy and as Jo entered the room I was happy to let her sort the life threatening problem out. The look of fear on the furry faces made me chuckle as I explained that it was only a recording and that the world was still ok, although as Jen, Glenn and I wondered if the current news with North Korea actually change that situation!
Woolly says – the bunk room didn’t seem to be the most comfortable and as we tested out the beds I was glad that I had a much softer option at night. Next door housed the hospital area where a victim of a blast lay screaming in bed while the nurse reassured them whilst shaking her head in sorrow, I shuddered at what could have been. As we climbed back up to ground level and the sweet smell of manure from the surrounding fields I felt very grateful that I didn’t have to work in the depths below and that the threats towards our country was still being managed all of these years later. Fascinating and terrifying, the not so secret bunker had given us an incredible insight into how things had been. Woolly says – As I waved one last time to my friend as the car bounced down the narrow lanes I couldn’t but help feeling sad that our time together had been so short and that we hadn’t had chance to discuss so many things including the rising costs of pistachio’s and the need for our humans to cater more to our needs………
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