Speechification

The paralysing gravity of this programme's subject matter creeps up on you. By the end of the programme—when we hear the launch sequence for a submarine nuclear weapon just as it would have been heard in the event of a real launch—I found myself choking back tears. Tears, I suppose, of relief that the bloody thing never happened.

I'm using the past tense because the programme's about the grim intensity of cold war readiness and the men (they're all men) who would have been required to press the button if everything had gone pear-shaped. I have to say that I'm glad it was all over while I was still a young man: I think the older me would have been crying all the time...

Not that it couldn't happen now in the blink of an eye, of course: the submarines and the aeroplanes are still ready to go. I think you'll find yourself admiring these men, though, as I did. Their calm and their seriousness and their real understanding of the gravity of their hideous obligations is, to say the least, reassuring. Absolutely nothing gung-ho here.

Here's the MP3, here's the programme's web page. and here's an excellent slideshow made using audio from the programme, contemporary images and photographs from the government bunker featured in the programme (pic from the slideshow).

This entry was posted by by Steve Bowbrick on Thursday, January 8th, 2009 at 12:44 am . You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.