| "The time has now come to make everything ready | | | | original "Protect and Survive" public service |
| for you and your family in case an air attack | | | | broadcasts are playing on continuous loop. |
| happens" - Protect and Survive (British Government | | | | The videos are more chilling than any horror movie. |
| Information Broadcast). | | | | They were only designed to be shown if a nuclear |
| The Secret Nuclear Bunker in Kelvedon Hatch, Essex | | | | strike was deemed likely within 72 hours. If you had |
| is an eerie but utterly compelling tourist attraction. It | | | | ever seen these programmes broadcast for real, |
| is certainly one of the most unusual locations in | | | | then your own death would be virtually imminent. By |
| England and the official road signs ironically pointing to | | | | this stage military planners assumed that Soviet tank |
| a "Secret Nuclear Bunker" have achieved a degree of | | | | armies would have overwhelmed Allied forces in a |
| internet notoriety. | | | | short, conventional war on the north German plain |
| Imagine. It is 1961 and negotiations over the Soviet | | | | and escalation to atomic warfare would be the only |
| missiles in Cuba have irretrievably broken down. Deep | | | | remaining military option. |
| beneath the Essex countryside, the communications | | | | The films were produced in 1980 and cover the |
| nerve centre is monitoring the radio chatter... there | | | | basics of survival: constructing a fall-out shelter, |
| are riots on the streets of Berlin, unconfirmed wire | | | | building an inner refuge, hoarding enough drinking |
| reports of Soviet tank armies sweeping across the | | | | water and food for two weeks. Bring a child's teddy |
| central German plain. The sense of claustrophobia, of | | | | bear, and games, and books. Just hold on for two |
| fear, is overwhelming. A helicopter swoops in and the | | | | weeks. |
| Prime Minister and War Minister are bundled out. They | | | | The voice-over on your audio guide notes that the |
| enter the door of what appears to be a small, | | | | advice was futile. Everyone would die. The |
| unprepossessing rural cottage. Neither man will see | | | | government broadcasts aimed simply to minimise |
| daylight again. Then the huge blast doors close for | | | | chaos and anarchy in the days up to the attack, as |
| ever. | | | | ministers and generals hurried to their deep |
| The Secret Nuclear Bunker is located just over | | | | underground prisons. Everything within at least ten |
| twenty five miles outside London. This is no sleek, | | | | miles of ground zero would be totally incinerated. |
| American facility of the kind showcased in a hundred | | | | Unquenchable fires would rage a further ten miles. |
| Hollywood movies (think Terminator Three for a | | | | Escape was futile even before the nuclear winter set |
| recent incarnation). Instead it is typically British - | | | | in. |
| dingy, cramped and shockingly inadequate for the | | | | In the second level of the bunker, there is a large |
| 600 soldiers, civil servants and Cabinet ministers who | | | | room from which the UK would be governed, with |
| would have sought their final refuge here. | | | | each grand department of state (Health, Transport) |
| You enter the bunker through the portal of a tiny | | | | reduced to just a headboard and a couple of chairs. |
| rural cottage. The only clue to the secret concealed | | | | There are the small, dark bedrooms where the Prime |
| within is a large radio mast that tops a grass mound. | | | | Minister and his VIP entourage would have slept. On |
| Make sure you pick up an audio guide for the tour at | | | | the top floor, there is the eerie military hospital |
| this point. Then pass the blast doors, follow the | | | | including operating tables, and cardboard coffins. |
| narrow, long corridor and eventually turn into a fully | | | | Finally, walking through the accommodation blocks |
| equipped communications hub. Here you will find | | | | (staff would have rotated on shared bunks) you |
| rooms crammed with archaic switchboard technology, | | | | pass through to the canteen. |
| using a primitive version of the Internet on deep | | | | So why is this bunker such a fearsome and |
| underground cables that would apparently survive an | | | | evocative place? No one ever died here. The base |
| atomic blast. There is a fully equipped radio studio | | | | was decommissioned at the end of the Cold War in |
| from which the Prime Minister would address the | | | | 1994 and closed up like an old wound in the English |
| nation. Beyond is a cavernous planning area where | | | | countryside. A private individual bought the land. |
| military meteorologists would monitor the fall-out and | | | | Maybe it's because the fear of silent annihilation, of |
| radiation as Soviet warheads obliterated Western | | | | the threat of nuclear winter, has never left us and |
| cities. | | | | we still hear echoes in today's news reports of |
| Today the interior strikes the visitor as a curious mix | | | | weapons of mass destructions and terrorist plots. |
| of Seventies and Eighties retro technology, | | | | Leaving the bunker is easy. You just pass through a |
| bureaucratic pomposity and surreal, chilling effects | | | | long silver tunnel and emerge, not into a land charred |
| such as dummies propped up in chairs. Look out for | | | | and blackened by atomic fall-out, but into the |
| Margaret Thatcher and John Major wax dummies | | | | beautiful Essex forest. Fresh air has never felt so |
| gracing the building. Around them, TV screens playing | | | | good. |