Lights on Bradwell!

John Betjeman on Southend pier Feburary 1980

'I attended one day of the inquiry held last week by the Ministry of Fuel and Power at Maldon, in Essex, about the atomic power station the Central Electricity Board has decided to erect on the Blackwater Estuary at Bradwell. It seems odd that the Minister should be the judge of the activities of one of his own departments, and that Ministries like Agriculture and Fisheries and Housing and Local Government should not be the judges. At this inquiry I should have thought either of them would have been entitled to that position. But that is something to do with law and I realise my ignorance of it when I attend an inquiry like this. The skill of the lawyers is amazing, particularly the way they lead a witness into a trap and pounce. The Central Electricity Board, of course, has its professional witnesses, but for us members of the public the ordeal is terrifying.

You must imagine the crowded hall beside the Congregational Church in Maldon, the amiable inspector and his two assistants on the platform. Below him on his right, the men from the Central Electricity Board; there seemed to be about twenty-five of them in dark, neat suits, hard collars and horn-rimmed spectacles, with files and papers (first-class fares and time paid). They reminded me of men from 1984, or the novel by C. S. Lewis, That Hideous Strength. On the other side were we, the mad-eyed preservationists, the shrewd farmers and representatives of the fishing and oyster interests, all giving up time and money voluntarily to save the Dengie Peninsula. I hope this does not sound smug, but it is the truth, and it is worth noting that counsel appearing on behalf of objectors to Government schemes generally do so free or for very low fees. Between us sat the Essex country people, some thinking the atomic station would bring them riches, others wanting to continue the way of life their fathers lived before them.'

- John Betjeman c.1958

THE NEXT EDITION OF MANAGED RETREAT WILL BE....

LIGHTS ON BRADWELL!

As radioactive as an old joke

UK nuclear sites at risk of flooding

     Governments fall from sheer indifference. Authority figures,
deprived of the vampiric energy they suck off their constituents,
are seen for what they are: dead empty masks manipulated by
computers. And what is behind the computers? Remote control.
Of course. Don't intend to be here when this shithouse goes up.
Nothing here now but the recordings. Shut them off, they are
as radioactive as an old joke.
     Look at the prison you are in, we are all in. This is a penal
colony that is now a Death Camp. Place of the Second and Final
Death.
     Desperation is the raw material of drastic change. Only
those who can leave behind everything they have ever believed
in can hope to escape.

from The Western Lands (1988) by William S. Burroughs.