Kelvedon Hatch Nuclear Bunker (part three)

Very handy to have a nuclear bunker nearby in this kind of situation.  If you could get in it - which you probably wouldn't.  And would it be any better?


After all, we can only imagine as we wander round the hospital section of Kelvedon Hatch the horror of that place should the worst have happened.  It's dark and menacing in there as it is.


The cardboard coffin on the floor is a terrifying sight - its lid open as if ready for its intended occupant.  Shivers. 


We move on to other rooms - including the Prime Minister's, which is labelled as such.  In the bed lies a dummy with a John Major mask on.  The room is sparse, but seems like quite a lot of space for one person and his family (we presume) - compared to the living conditions in the rest of the bunker.


Finally we come to the canteen - where it seems food is served to people who fancy a bite to eat after their appointment with the alternative past.  Here you pay the entrance fee - which has become an exit fee.  You just put the money in a box while people shuffle about in the kitchen with their backs to you - it's very odd.


Around the walls are little baskets and boxes filled with cold war...er... merchandise like 'Protect and Survive' leaflets, Russian army badges and postcards of the bunker itself.  There are also toy guns - when I come back with Freddie the week after my first visit I buy him one of the guns.  An act of enormous bad taste under the circumstances, given where we are.


You exit the bunker through a tunnel and are surprised to find how near the outside world actually is when you are in the canteen.  Difficult to believe you would be safe in there.  Much better down in the depths I would think.


You go back to the car feeling slightly transformed - or I did anyway.  Not quite believing what you've just seen.  I suppose it's the actual sting of history - feeling it and seeing it and walking in it as a real thing.  And not just history but an alternative history also - what might have been.


The grip of the bunker extends into our lives when we get home - we might search the internet for information about nuclear weapons, for films like 'Threads' - the utterly terrifying docu-drama about the effect of a nuclear war on Sheffield.  The whole thing is on You Tube - watch it if you are interested in this period.  Watch it and tremble.


Also on You Tube is the 1960s documentary 'The War Game' which covers the same subject matter.  It is equally frightening and grim - although strangely beautiful, I can't say why.


And there is the QED documentary 'A Guide to Armageddon' - also very interesting but with a slight distance because purely factual, not quite as scary.


All this stuff is on the internet - and lots more.  The Nuclear War never happened - but in a way it happens all the time, and continues to happen over and over again on the internet ... and in the dark corridors of Kelvedon Hatch the war is imagined time and again by people who dare to look inside.  


Fascinating it may be but thank god, thank god it's all virtual these days.