AWE (Greetings from your Friendly Neighbourhood Atomic Weapons Establishment)
As we stepped through the door of our new home, we were greeted by a local freesheet that had plopped through the letterbox: the ‘AWE Community Link’.
On eight glossy pages, proud youngsters and various community groups posed with happy smiles as AWE’s many local initiatives were listed, ranging from fundraising for medical equipment to the establishment of nature reserves for local school children. The schools around here certainly seem among the best equipped in the counry—being so close to AWE’s ‘centre for world-class science and engineering’.
When I tore open the plastic envelope, a bundle of leaflets fell out, marked in large letters: “IMPORTANT INFORMATION—PLEASE DO NOT THROW AWAY”.
We had arrived back in the dark ages of the cold war, complete with ‘dive under the table and hold a sheet of paper over your head’-style rhetoric. One note, coloured a soothing blue-green rather than alarming red or black, proclaimed: “Go in; Stay in; Tune in!”. A brochure fell open at a map in the centre pages which informed us that we live between sections G and H of the 3 km ‘advisory shelter zone’ around the Aldermaston site and, while not all of the 16 sectors may be affected in case of an emergency, we are pretty much fucked if we are. I leaved through the pamphlet for more detailed information.
It started promising:
“What is NOT Possible?
- A Chernobyl-type reactor disaster.
There is no such reactor at either the Aldermaston or Burghfield sites.”
It is reassuring to know that their reactor(s) are not of the Chernobyl type :}
it is also true that they ship most of the stuff in from outside, and ship the completed warheads out again :}
- “A nuclear bomb explosion of the kind that took place at Hiroshima. Years of testing warhead safety mechanisms have proved they cannot be overidden, whatever the accident or circumstances.”
That’s alright then. In the accompanying letter our friendly neighbours stated that AWE is obliged to send the enclosed safety information every three years under Radiation Emergency Preparedness and Public Information Regulations (REPPIR ), but on this occassion sent it sooner to make sure everybody got a copy as a reminder and—I don’t know, perhaps they got bored in the office. Whatever:
“We have not sent it because of any increased threat or risk from AWE’s sites and it has nothing to do with the current world situation.”
(Their bold).
Happy New Year from your friendly neighbourhood Atomic Weapons Establishment!
Tags: Tadley Times, Tag Index
Denni