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Speaker 1: Pushkin. A nasty flu bug was going around Cumberland, in

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Speaker 1: the northwest of England. Tom Tooey hadn't got it, but

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Speaker 1: his wife and kids had, so he had taken the

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Speaker 1: day off to look after them. At five o'clock in

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Speaker 1: the afternoon, he got a call from work.

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Speaker 2: Can you come in?

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Speaker 1: There's a fire. Good God, said Towey. He got in

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Speaker 1: his car and drove the quiet country lanes to his workplace.

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Speaker 1: Cumberland was remote, They're not that remote. There were farms

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Speaker 1: and villages. People lived there. That was a concern because

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Speaker 1: to his workplace was a nuclear reactor. How bad was

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Speaker 1: it exactly for a nuclear reactor to be on fire? Too?

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Speaker 1: He wasn't sure. Nuclear technology was still very new in

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Speaker 1: nineteen fifty seven. Only just over a decade had passed

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Speaker 1: since the first nuclear bombs were dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

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Speaker 1: The nuclear accidents at Three Mile Island and Schnobyl laid

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Speaker 1: decades in the future as too. He later reflected, mankind

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Speaker 1: had never faced anything like this ever before, So no,

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Speaker 1: Tom Towey wasn't sure exactly how bad it was that

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Speaker 1: the nuclear reactor was on fire, but clearly it wasn't good.

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Speaker 1: How much radioactivity might leak out if the fire got worse,

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Speaker 1: how much might be leaking out already. The wife of

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Speaker 1: another worker recalls getting a phone call at about the

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Speaker 1: same time as Tooey was called in. Where's the baby,

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Speaker 1: asked the worker in his proud, said the wife. In

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Speaker 1: the garden getting some sun. Bring him inside, said the worker.

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Speaker 1: Close the doors and the windows. Oh, unlock the hens

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Speaker 1: in the henhouse. Then don't go out. I won't be

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Speaker 1: home tonight too. He arrives at Windscale. It's a collection

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Speaker 1: of stark concrete buildings on the coast with two massive chimneys.

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Speaker 1: It was built in a hurry just a few years ago.

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Speaker 1: Why the hurry? The United States and the Soviet Union

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Speaker 1: both had the nuclear bomb. The British government wanted the

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Speaker 1: bomb too. Besides, uclear energy was new, exciting and full

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Speaker 1: of possibilities, As the UK Atomic Energy Authority was eager

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Speaker 1: to make clear in its promotional films, Windscale is unique.

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Speaker 2: It is science fiction, intruding on our sober lives and

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Speaker 2: let us up very great produce our plutonium, a pure

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Speaker 2: atomic fuel of both industrial and weapons projects.

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Speaker 1: Too. He thinks had better see this fire for himself.

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Speaker 1: There's only one way to do that. He climbs eighty

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Speaker 1: feet up a metal staircase to an inspection hole. He

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Speaker 1: lifts the metal cover of the hole and peers down

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Speaker 1: into the reactor. Below him is a raging inferno. A

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Speaker 1: thought flashes across Tom to his mind, what a bloody

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Speaker 1: mess we're in. I'm Tim Harford and you're listening to

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Speaker 1: cautionary tales. Lorna Rainbow started school a year later than

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Speaker 1: she could have. The school was over a mile from

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Speaker 1: the farm her family rented, and they didn't have the

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Speaker 1: time to walk her there and back. You had to

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Speaker 1: work all hours to make ends meet as a tenant

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Speaker 1: farmer in southern England in the early nineteen twenties. When

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Speaker 1: Lorna was five, her parents thought she was probably still

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Speaker 1: a bit too young to walk the mile to school

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Speaker 1: on her own, but at six, off she went. The

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Speaker 1: walk to school was down a rutted lane, dusty in

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Speaker 1: the summer, muddy in the winter. Traffic wasn't a problem.

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Speaker 1: There might be an occasional horse and cart, but the

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Speaker 1: lane passed only a couple of other houses. The main danger,

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Speaker 1: at least in six year old Lorna's mind, was a

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Speaker 1: big oak tree where rumor had it that a man

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Speaker 1: had once been hanged. Could it be haunted? Every day?

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Speaker 1: Lorna ran past the tree, her heart thumping, But the

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Speaker 1: rest of the walk was enchanting. Lorna remembers a lovely

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Speaker 1: profusion of wild flowers by the roadside. Birds and birds

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Speaker 1: sold tiny emerald green frogs in the puddles in wet

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Speaker 1: and stormy. Whether I would sing as I splashed through

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Speaker 1: the puddles and my rubber boots in winter every winter

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Speaker 1: the magic of snow. The school had just two rooms,

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Speaker 1: one for little kids one for bigger kids. Up to

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Speaker 1: the age of fourteen, then you'd leave to work on

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Speaker 1: a farm, or as a housemaid, or maybe a shop assistant.

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Speaker 1: The local town had a Woolworth's. It also had a

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Speaker 1: secondary school, and you could sit an exam to earn

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Speaker 1: a scholarship, but nobody from Lorna's school had ever even tried.

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Speaker 1: Further education wasn't something kids aspired to, especially girls. Lorna

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Speaker 1: remembers a poem her grandmother used to recite, be good,

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Speaker 1: sweet maid, and let who will be clever. Lorna's dad

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Speaker 1: was more encouraging be good, sweet maid. He'd tell her

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Speaker 1: of a wink and if you must be clever. On

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Speaker 1: the day of the exam, Lorna was terrified. A vast

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Speaker 1: school hall, endless rows of desks, and a paper that

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Speaker 1: said intelligence test. She'd never seen anything like it. But

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Speaker 1: the test turned out to be a wonderful new game.

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Speaker 1: At her new school, the girls spoke of loftier ambitions.

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Speaker 1: Maybe they could be a nurse, or a teacher, or

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Speaker 1: a secretary at least for a few years until they

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Speaker 1: got married. Lorna liked English and history, but physics in

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Speaker 1: chemistry were barely on the curriculum. I had no idea.

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Speaker 1: She recalls that in nineteen thirty two, two scientists in

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Speaker 1: Cambridge had split the atom. This fact would be central

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Speaker 1: to my later life. In Cambridge in the nineteen thirties,

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Speaker 1: a young man called Bill Penny was doing original research

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Speaker 1: for his doctorate in quantum physics. Though if you'd met

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Speaker 1: him you might not have guessed it. Penny was burly,

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Speaker 1: one hundred meter runner and on the soccer pitch, a robust,

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Speaker 1: bustling center forward of the old fashioned type. He was

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Speaker 1: shy and prone to blushing. He talked in a drawl

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Speaker 1: and had a lot sided grin permanently on his face.

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Speaker 1: His wooly sweaters were a bit too baggy. He looked

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Speaker 1: and spoke, said one journalist, as though he was a

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Speaker 1: bit simple. When the Second World War broke out, the

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Speaker 1: government asked Penny to make calculations about blast waves from

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Speaker 1: explosions as German bombs rained down on London. Penny became

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Speaker 1: such an expert that in nineteen forty four he went

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Speaker 1: to Los Alamos to join the Manhattan Project. At first,

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Speaker 1: his American colleagues didn't know what to make of him.

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Speaker 1: He gave a talk explaining in gruesome detail the effects

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Speaker 1: of last waves on the human body, all with that

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Speaker 1: amiable grin. They nicknamed him the Smiling Killer. But Penny

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Speaker 1: soon won friends. He was completely without pretense. He had

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Speaker 1: absolutely no side or standoffishness. Someone who hosted him recalls

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Speaker 1: it was like having a teddy bear in the house.

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Speaker 1: But the teddy bear had a mind like a razor.

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Speaker 1: When the Americans wanted to know how high above Hiroshima

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Speaker 1: and Nagasaki to detonate their bombs, it was Penny they

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Speaker 1: trusted with the calculation. Afterwards, Penny flew to Japan and

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Speaker 1: roamed through the ruined cities, looking for clues that would

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Speaker 1: let him calculate exactly how much power the blasted unleashed.

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Speaker 1: He worked it out by mapping crumpled gasoline cans. Back

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Speaker 1: in Britain, Penny looked forward to a quiet life in academia.

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Speaker 1: But the government had other ideas. Britain. They told him

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Speaker 1: needed the atom bomb. As it happened, Penny agreed. Had

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Speaker 1: seen up close in Japan the horrors of the bomb,

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Speaker 1: he bought the logic that Britain would be safer with

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Speaker 1: its own nuclear deterrent. But now the war was over,

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Speaker 1: the US had decided no longer to share its nuclear

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Speaker 1: knowledge with its allies. The only person who can build

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Speaker 1: a bomb for Britain, the government told Penny, is you.

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Speaker 1: Penny agreed reluctantly to lead a team of scientists that

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Speaker 1: rapidly grew from the hundreds to the thousands. One interviewer

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Speaker 1: invited Penny to big himself up. How many people are

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Speaker 1: working under you, Penny replied, in his laconic drawl about her.

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Speaker 1: By nineteen fifty two, Penny was ready for the first

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Speaker 1: test of Britain's new atomic technology in a remote part

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Speaker 1: of Australia. The Prime Minister waited anxiously to hear if

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Speaker 1: the test had failed or succeeded. It said he had

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Speaker 1: two telegrams ready. One began, tough luck, Dr Penny, the

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Speaker 1: other well done, Sir William. A journalist later asked Sir

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Speaker 1: William Penny to describe how the test had gone. It

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Speaker 1: went off, he replied, like a bomb. The British government

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Speaker 1: hoped to use the successful test to persuade America to

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Speaker 1: agree to a partnership to share nuclear knowledge. But while

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Speaker 1: Britain had been catching up, America had moved ahead from

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Speaker 1: the A bomb to the H bomb. H bombs worked

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Speaker 1: very differently and were much more powerful. Britain would have

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Speaker 1: to build an H bomb too. They'd need plutonium, lots

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Speaker 1: of plutonium, and quickly they'd manufacture it. At Windscale Cautionary

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Speaker 1: tails will be back after the break. What a bloody

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Speaker 1: mess we're in. Tom Tooy closes the inspection hole and

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Speaker 1: descends the eighty feet of metal steps, thinking about his options.

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Speaker 1: The nuclear reactor at Windscale was cooled by air, not

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Speaker 1: by water. If something's too hot, blowing more air on

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Speaker 1: it is generally a good way to cool it down.

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Speaker 1: But if something's on fire blowing air on it is

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Speaker 1: going to make the fire worse. Could he turn off

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Speaker 1: the fans to try to put the fire out? He could,

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Speaker 1: but it was risky. Only part of the reactor was

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Speaker 1: on fire, the fans were still cooling the rest. Turning

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Speaker 1: off the fans could make the rest overheat, which might

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Speaker 1: make things worse. It was a last resort. Could he

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Speaker 1: dump water on the reactor to try to put the

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Speaker 1: fire out? He could, but it was risky. The reactor

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Speaker 1: core was made from graphite. Picture a kind of honeycomb,

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Speaker 1: and inside each hole a series of metal canisters containing

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Speaker 1: uranium fuel. What would happen if you dumped a load

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Speaker 1: of water on a burning mass of uranium, metal and graphite.

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Speaker 1: Nobody was sure, as Tom Tooey said, mankind had never

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Speaker 1: faced anything like this, ever, that it might release gas

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Speaker 1: that could cause an explosion. Water was a second from

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Speaker 1: last resort. Workers at Windscale had been trying to create

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Speaker 1: a firebreak by using steel poles to push the uranium

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Speaker 1: canisters out of the honeycomb holes around the part of

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Speaker 1: the core where the fire was burning. Now dripping with

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Speaker 1: sweat in their heavy protective suits, they start trying to

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Speaker 1: shove the burning canisters out of the fiery core itself.

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Speaker 1: It's hard and canisters are twisted by the heat. The

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Speaker 1: poles come out, glowing red and dripping molten steel. They

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Speaker 1: need more steel poles. They made the scaffolding on a

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Speaker 1: nearby construction site. They were heroes that night, an officer

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Speaker 1: later said of the workers. But were their heroics having

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Speaker 1: an effect? At close to midnight, Tom Tooey climbs the

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Speaker 1: eighty feet of steps again to peer through the inspection hole.

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Speaker 1: The fire has spread. At Lorna Rainbow's secondary school for girls,

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Speaker 1: nobody had ever gone on to university. Lorna's teachers encouraged

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Speaker 1: her to sit the scholarship exams once again. She aced them.

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Speaker 1: Soon after she finished her English degree, the Second World

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Speaker 1: War broke out. As men signed up to fight, women

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Speaker 1: filled the jobs they vacated. Lorna received a telegram from

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Speaker 1: the War Office inviting her to interview for the post

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Speaker 1: of Junior administrative Assistant. At first, she felt bewilled. There

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Speaker 1: was so much to learn, she recalls, and I was

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Speaker 1: woefully ignorant. I had no office experience and knew nothing

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Speaker 1: about the army. She began by arranging rooms for meetings

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Speaker 1: and being a general gopher. Then her boss asked her

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Speaker 1: to write up the meeting minutes and then to draft

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Speaker 1: papers and briefing notes. He'd go through them with her,

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Speaker 1: sentence by sentence. What's your basis for saying this? Should

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Speaker 1: you explain that point more fully? Think? Who's your readership?

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Speaker 1: Tell your story in a way your readers will understand.

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00:16:48,810 --> 00:16:52,050
Speaker 1: She thanked him for his kindness in mentoring her, and

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Speaker 1: he laughed he wasn't being kind, He'd simply seen how

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Speaker 1: quickly she could learn. Lorna was promoted to work on

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Speaker 1: plans for the occupation of Berlin. When Germany surrendered, she

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Speaker 1: was sent to Berlin. She spent her first night in

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Speaker 1: a ground floor flat with broken windows, listening to Russian

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Speaker 1: soldiers marauled through the streets, singing drunken songs and shooting

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Speaker 1: in the air. What if they came in through her

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Speaker 1: broken window? The next morning she mentioned her concern to

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Speaker 1: an officer here. He said, have a revolver. Lorna worked

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Speaker 1: on setting up administration of the British Stone of Berlin

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Speaker 1: and was surprised to find that she was senior to

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Speaker 1: some of the army clerks. Yes, sir, let's say to her,

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Speaker 1: Miss Rainbow, Sir. But the British were strapped for resources.

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Speaker 1: Their needs support from America. Lorna was sent to Washington

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Speaker 1: to help with the negotiation. At a lunch to celebrate

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Speaker 1: the deal, the Secretary of State began his speech with

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Speaker 1: a smile in Lorna's direction. Lady and gentlemen. Lorna spent

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Speaker 1: three years in Washington, profiled in the newspapers as a

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Speaker 1: vital cog in the diplomatic wheel. Then she resigned. Why

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Speaker 1: it seemed perfectly natural, She later explained, the world was

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Speaker 1: changing from a wartime to a post war situation. Women

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Speaker 1: who had filled the gaps during the war were generally

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Speaker 1: being displaced. It never occurred to me to think that

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Speaker 1: I had established any rights to a special position in

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Speaker 1: this man's world. With hindsight, she says, she could have

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Speaker 1: continued her career, but at the time, I simply felt

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Speaker 1: that I'd done my bit. Lorna moved back to England

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Speaker 1: and got a low level office job, and her husband

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Speaker 1: wasn't that what women were supposed to do? Be good,

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Speaker 1: sweet maid, and let who will be clever? At one

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Speaker 1: o'clock in the morning, the phone rings at the home

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Speaker 1: of the Chief Constable of Cumberland. A few years earlier,

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Speaker 1: he'd met bosses at Windscale to agree on procedures in

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Speaker 1: case of a major emergency, which was he was assured

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Speaker 1: only a remote possibility. Could he dust off that file

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Speaker 1: and start to implement the procedures? The Chief Constable makes

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Speaker 1: calls through the night. A fleet of buses descends on Cumberland,

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Speaker 1: ready to evacuate villages downwind of the reactor. At Windscale.

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Speaker 1: Tom Toohey searches desperately for an alternative to water as

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Speaker 1: a way to quench the fire. A huge amount of

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Speaker 1: some inert gas like argone might do it. But where

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Speaker 1: is he going to get a huge amount of argone

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Speaker 1: in rural England. In the middle of the night, he

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Speaker 1: tracks down a tanker of carbon dioxide. It's worth a try.

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Speaker 1: At four in the morning, he pumps in the carbon dioxide,

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Speaker 1: then climbs the eighty feet of steps again to peer

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Speaker 1: through the inspection hole. The fire still burns. They'll have

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Speaker 1: to risk the water. Two. He lines up the hoses

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Speaker 1: with the honeycomb holes and turns on the taps. Sir

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Speaker 1: William Penny had got a knighthood in nineteen fifty two

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Speaker 1: for building Briton's for A bomb, But the reward he

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Speaker 1: really wanted was a quiet life in academia, not a chance,

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Speaker 1: said the government. You need to build us an H bomb.

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Speaker 1: Penny dutifully got to work, despite giving everyone the general

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Speaker 1: impression that he would much rather be digging his garden.

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Speaker 1: The task became urgent. America and Russia were discussing an

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Speaker 1: international treaty to ban nuclear tests. Penny would have to

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Speaker 1: test his H bomb before that ban came in. He

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Speaker 1: knew he wasn't ready, and he thought the test might fail.

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00:21:52,810 --> 00:21:58,130
Speaker 1: It did, but it brought a backup plan, a massive

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Speaker 1: A bomb that might make a big enough blast to

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Speaker 1: fool a lay person into thinking it was an H bomb.

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Speaker 1: Those who knew the secret called the massive A bomb

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Speaker 1: the Penny Dreadful. It went off impressively. Assembled journalists duly

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Speaker 1: reported that Penny's H bomb test had been a great success.

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Speaker 1: Penny said nothing. In nineteen fifty seven, the US President

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Speaker 1: finally agreed to the British Prime Minister's request for a

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Speaker 1: nuclear information sharing partnership, but Congress still had to approve

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Speaker 1: the deal. The Prime minister could only hope that nothing

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Speaker 1: would happen in the meantime that might call into question

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Speaker 1: Britain's competence as a nuclear power. Then news reached the

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Speaker 1: Prime Minister from Cumberland. The reactor at Windscale was on

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Speaker 1: fire and nobody knew how bad it might be. Water

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Speaker 1: gushes through the hoses onto the burning reactor core. Tom

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Speaker 1: Tooey waits anxiously, an explosion might kill him, but there's

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Speaker 1: no explosion. Once again, he climbs the eighty feet of

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Speaker 1: steps to peer through the inspection hole. The water isn't working,

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Speaker 1: the fire is still raging. It's time for the last

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Speaker 1: resort two. He shuts off the fans, the fire dies out,

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Speaker 1: the rest of the reactor doesn't overheat. At midday, the

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Speaker 1: Chief Constable of Cumberland gets another phone call, panic over

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Speaker 1: no need to evacuate any villages. Tom Tooey drives back

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Speaker 1: home to his sick wife and children and collapses into bed. Exhausted.

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Speaker 1: But why had the fire happened? They were bound to

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Speaker 1: be awkward questions from the Americans. They needed answers, and

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00:24:28,650 --> 00:24:33,010
Speaker 1: quickly the government set up an inquiry and asks their

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Speaker 1: go to nuclear experts to share it. Sir William Penny

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00:24:43,290 --> 00:24:48,810
Speaker 1: lorna rainbow took her husband's name. Now she was Lorna Arnold,

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Speaker 1: but her husband turned out to be secretly struggling with

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Speaker 1: his sexuality. He came out as gay and left her,

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Speaker 1: not daring to tell her to her face. By the

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Speaker 1: time she received his letter of farewell, he had left

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Speaker 1: the country and she was left alone with two young

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Speaker 1: children and a low level office job. One lunchtime in

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Speaker 1: nineteen fifty eight, Lorna sat at the desk in her

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Speaker 1: office in London with a cheese sandwich brought from home

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Speaker 1: and a cup of instant coffee, trying to summon up

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Speaker 1: the enthusiasm to embark on a fresh pile of tedious papers.

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Speaker 1: They were sunny outside. She decided to go for a

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Speaker 1: walk and cheer herself up with a proper coffee from

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Speaker 1: one of the new Italian places that were opening in London.

303
00:25:47,130 --> 00:25:51,250
Speaker 1: There she bumped into a man she hadn't seen for years.

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Speaker 1: They'd been in Berlin together. How's your life turned out,

305
00:25:56,570 --> 00:26:01,050
Speaker 1: the man asked, I'm forty two years old, said Lorna.

306
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Speaker 1: I'm bringing up two sons on my own. My job

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00:26:05,130 --> 00:26:09,810
Speaker 1: doesn't pay much and it bores me senseless. The man

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00:26:09,930 --> 00:26:14,770
Speaker 1: was shocked. How had that happened. He had seen in

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Speaker 1: the war how brilliant Lorna was. Everyone had except Larna herself.

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Speaker 1: Leave it with me, he said. Lorna got a letter

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Speaker 1: inviting her to an interview with the UK Atomic Energy Authority.

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Speaker 1: We're expanding our staff, the director explained, because we're studying

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Speaker 1: the aftermath of an incident at Windscale. Lorna said, I

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Speaker 1: know nothing about science. I can't possibly be of any

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Speaker 1: use to you. She got the job. Cautionary tales will

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Speaker 1: be back after the break. Just six days had passed

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Speaker 1: since the fire when so William Penny arrived at Windscale.

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Speaker 1: He called in the workers, still drained from their sleepless night.

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Speaker 1: One recalls feeling intimidated at first Penny was a big man,

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Speaker 1: but he soon found that Penny was also extremely pleasant, courteous, thoughtful,

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Speaker 1: very polite. Indeed, the story Penny heard began five years earlier.

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Speaker 1: Soon after Windscale opened, workers had noticed a sudden increase

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Speaker 1: in temperature in part of the reactor core. Nobody understood it.

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Speaker 1: Nuclear technology was still very new. It turned out to

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Speaker 1: be something called Vigner energy. The reactor core, remember, was

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Speaker 1: a graphite honeycomb in which were placed cartridges of uranium

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Speaker 1: as radioactive particles from the urania and buffeted that graphite honeycomb.

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Speaker 1: They knocked atoms in the graphite out of place. This

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00:28:16,690 --> 00:28:20,570
Speaker 1: caused a build up of Vigner energy, which could randomly

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00:28:20,610 --> 00:28:25,410
Speaker 1: release itself in a burst of heat. This was a problem.

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Speaker 1: You don't want bits of your reactor randomly overheating. To

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Speaker 1: prevent that, they'd have to release the Vigner energy in

333
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Speaker 1: a controlled way. Every few months, the windscale workers performed

334
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Speaker 1: a Vigner release. They let the reactor core heat up,

335
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Speaker 1: not too much, just enough for the graphite atoms to

336
00:28:48,730 --> 00:28:55,370
Speaker 1: safely rearrange themselves. They'd done this Vigner release eight times.

337
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Speaker 1: It worked kind of but not in the same way.

338
00:29:01,050 --> 00:29:05,330
Speaker 1: Every time, as they let the core heat up, it

339
00:29:05,370 --> 00:29:11,810
Speaker 1: would heat unevenly. They'd have to decid keep heating to

340
00:29:11,890 --> 00:29:15,010
Speaker 1: get the cooler parts of the core to the required temperature,

341
00:29:15,930 --> 00:29:20,130
Speaker 1: or stop heating to prevent the hotter parts from getting

342
00:29:20,170 --> 00:29:25,410
Speaker 1: too hot. There was no operating manual. The workers just

343
00:29:25,490 --> 00:29:30,090
Speaker 1: had to figure it out as best they could. On

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00:29:30,170 --> 00:29:34,050
Speaker 1: the ninth Vigna release, it seemed they'd applied too much

345
00:29:34,130 --> 00:29:40,730
Speaker 1: heat and the core caught fire. But what really caused

346
00:29:40,770 --> 00:29:44,570
Speaker 1: the fire was that nobody at Windscale really understood what

347
00:29:44,610 --> 00:29:49,490
Speaker 1: they were doing. Why did each vignim release happen differently?

348
00:29:50,330 --> 00:29:54,890
Speaker 1: They didn't know, and they were working with only partial information.

349
00:29:56,170 --> 00:29:59,850
Speaker 1: There weren't enough instruments in the core to check temperatures everywhere.

350
00:30:00,890 --> 00:30:05,570
Speaker 1: They were also understaffed. In the hurry to build the bomb,

351
00:30:06,330 --> 00:30:10,890
Speaker 1: the British nuclear program had expanded too before enough workers

352
00:30:10,930 --> 00:30:16,330
Speaker 1: could be properly trained. After ten days in Windscale, Penny

353
00:30:16,530 --> 00:30:22,250
Speaker 1: wrote up his findings. These explained the underlying problems. He

354
00:30:22,330 --> 00:30:26,210
Speaker 1: didn't blame the workers for the fire, and he praised

355
00:30:26,250 --> 00:30:29,730
Speaker 1: how they had fought it. They were prompt and efficient,

356
00:30:30,090 --> 00:30:37,090
Speaker 1: he said, and displayed considerable devotion to duty. Penny's report

357
00:30:37,730 --> 00:30:43,170
Speaker 1: landed on the Prime Minister's desk. The Prime Minister was

358
00:30:43,410 --> 00:30:50,370
Speaker 1: horrified it made the British nuclear program look amateurish. If

359
00:30:50,450 --> 00:30:54,130
Speaker 1: members of the US Congress saw this, they might refuse

360
00:30:54,250 --> 00:30:59,930
Speaker 1: to approve Britain as a nuclear partner. Penny's report couldn't

361
00:30:59,970 --> 00:31:03,890
Speaker 1: be published. The Prime Minister ordered that the report be

362
00:31:04,010 --> 00:31:07,610
Speaker 1: locked away in a filing cabinet and issued his own

363
00:31:07,890 --> 00:31:15,290
Speaker 1: summary instead. His summary blamed the workers. They'd made an

364
00:31:15,410 --> 00:31:24,690
Speaker 1: error of judgment, he said, sorry, won't happen again. Congress

365
00:31:24,810 --> 00:31:29,850
Speaker 1: approved the NUCTAR partnership. Britain's scientists now had access to

366
00:31:30,090 --> 00:31:36,570
Speaker 1: US expertise. A few months later, the US delegation visited Windscale.

367
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Speaker 1: They were shown round by high powered bosses who hadn't

368
00:31:40,890 --> 00:31:44,490
Speaker 1: been at Windscale during the fire, and told a story

369
00:31:44,490 --> 00:31:50,250
Speaker 1: that bore no relation to what actually happened. Tom Tooey

370
00:31:50,290 --> 00:31:54,490
Speaker 1: had to sit and listen, and they didn't let him

371
00:31:54,610 --> 00:31:58,450
Speaker 1: say a word. What did you think of that? An

372
00:31:58,450 --> 00:32:02,610
Speaker 1: interviewer later asked tooe How polite do you want me

373
00:32:02,650 --> 00:32:08,170
Speaker 1: to be too? He replied, I thought, what a shower

374
00:32:08,170 --> 00:32:18,610
Speaker 1: of bus. Under British law, secret government papers are usually

375
00:32:18,650 --> 00:32:24,370
Speaker 1: published after thirty years have passed. Thirty years after Windscale

376
00:32:24,730 --> 00:32:28,770
Speaker 1: in nineteen eighty seven, the time approached for the Penny

377
00:32:28,810 --> 00:32:32,170
Speaker 1: Report to be taken out of its filing cabinet and

378
00:32:32,250 --> 00:32:37,450
Speaker 1: made available to the public. That prospect worried the Records

379
00:32:37,450 --> 00:32:42,970
Speaker 1: officer of the UK Atomic Energy Authority. The problem was

380
00:32:43,010 --> 00:32:46,610
Speaker 1: that the Penny Report on its own wouldn't tell the

381
00:32:46,770 --> 00:32:51,450
Speaker 1: full story of what had happened at Windscale. After writing

382
00:32:51,490 --> 00:32:55,770
Speaker 1: his report, Penny had recommended further investigations into the issues

383
00:32:55,810 --> 00:33:00,570
Speaker 1: he'd identified. Documents from those investigations were due to be

384
00:33:00,650 --> 00:33:05,450
Speaker 1: released later in dribs and drabs, thirty years after each

385
00:33:05,650 --> 00:33:10,210
Speaker 1: was filed away. Why don'ly release them all at once,

386
00:33:10,730 --> 00:33:13,250
Speaker 1: said the records officer, And I'll write a book to

387
00:33:13,290 --> 00:33:18,970
Speaker 1: accompany them. It's an important story, she said. It deserves

388
00:33:19,010 --> 00:33:22,050
Speaker 1: to be told in a way that readers will understand.

389
00:33:23,650 --> 00:33:29,010
Speaker 1: Good idea, said her bosses. When her book was published,

390
00:33:29,490 --> 00:33:32,770
Speaker 1: the records officer got letters from workers who've been there

391
00:33:32,810 --> 00:33:37,170
Speaker 1: at the time of the fire for thirty years. They said,

392
00:33:38,130 --> 00:33:43,530
Speaker 1: we've been blamed for an error of judgment. Thank you

393
00:33:43,610 --> 00:33:48,930
Speaker 1: for making it clear that it wasn't our fault. The

394
00:33:49,010 --> 00:33:54,090
Speaker 1: records officer's name was Lorna Arnold. Lorna was now in

395
00:33:54,130 --> 00:33:58,850
Speaker 1: her early seventies. She should have retired, but she had

396
00:33:58,890 --> 00:34:03,290
Speaker 1: found a job she loved. Lorna was assisting a historian

397
00:34:03,490 --> 00:34:08,050
Speaker 1: to produce an epic three volume history of Britain's post

398
00:34:08,130 --> 00:34:13,250
Speaker 1: war nuclear work. When the historian retired, with the third

399
00:34:13,370 --> 00:34:17,010
Speaker 1: volume not yet finished, Lorna took it upon herself to

400
00:34:17,050 --> 00:34:22,250
Speaker 1: finish the job. They could not bear, said Lorna, to

401
00:34:22,290 --> 00:34:27,210
Speaker 1: see the waste of years of arduous research in archives

402
00:34:27,730 --> 00:34:34,090
Speaker 1: to which no other historians had or might ever have access.

403
00:34:35,090 --> 00:34:38,930
Speaker 1: When Lorna was at school, her science teacher hadn't even

404
00:34:39,010 --> 00:34:43,850
Speaker 1: mentioned the splitting of the atom. Now she was writing

405
00:34:44,050 --> 00:34:49,850
Speaker 1: nuclear history with the help of a new friend, Bill Penny,

406
00:34:50,810 --> 00:34:56,170
Speaker 1: now retired and finally enjoying the quiet life. Lorna spent

407
00:34:56,450 --> 00:35:01,250
Speaker 1: hours at Penny's home, going over her research together and

408
00:35:01,330 --> 00:35:05,890
Speaker 1: getting an education in how little government ministers sometimes understand

409
00:35:05,930 --> 00:35:12,210
Speaker 1: about technology. Lorna Penny would say, where did you get

410
00:35:12,250 --> 00:35:20,410
Speaker 1: this garbage? A ministerial memo? She explained, Penny drawled Fellow

411
00:35:20,450 --> 00:35:27,210
Speaker 1: didn't know what he was talking about. When Lorna was

412
00:35:27,250 --> 00:35:31,730
Speaker 1: eighty one, a new boss at the Atomic Energy Authority

413
00:35:32,330 --> 00:35:38,130
Speaker 1: insisted that she had to retire, but others knew how

414
00:35:38,170 --> 00:35:41,770
Speaker 1: brilliant she still was and found a budget for a

415
00:35:41,930 --> 00:35:45,650
Speaker 1: typist to help her finish the book at home. It

416
00:35:45,730 --> 00:35:51,970
Speaker 1: was published in two thousand and one. Lorna was eighty

417
00:35:52,130 --> 00:36:01,370
Speaker 1: six years old. Remember the windscale worker who called his wife,

418
00:36:02,130 --> 00:36:06,050
Speaker 1: bring the baby inside, shut the doors and windows. He

419
00:36:06,170 --> 00:36:10,170
Speaker 1: was right to be cautious. The windscale fire turned out

420
00:36:10,210 --> 00:36:13,810
Speaker 1: to have been much more serious than anyone realized at

421
00:36:13,850 --> 00:36:18,690
Speaker 1: the time. Experts now believe that perhaps a hundred locals

422
00:36:18,770 --> 00:36:22,090
Speaker 1: may have died earlier than they otherwise would have from

423
00:36:22,170 --> 00:36:26,210
Speaker 1: cancers caused by radiation that leaked from the burning reactor.

424
00:36:28,490 --> 00:36:33,690
Speaker 1: Nobody had defined in advance what level of radiation leakage

425
00:36:33,770 --> 00:36:37,690
Speaker 1: might be tolerable for the local population that had to

426
00:36:37,690 --> 00:36:40,850
Speaker 1: work it out on the fly as the fire raged.

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Speaker 1: The calculations seemed reasonable with the knowledge they had at

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Speaker 1: the time, but that knowledge was incomplete. Nuclear technology was

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Speaker 1: still very new. Typically, on cautionary tales, we like to

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Speaker 1: draw lessons from disasters, and if you want a lesson

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Speaker 1: from Windscale, it's this. When someone's in a hurry roll

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Speaker 1: out a dangerous technology, don't be too quick to assume

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Speaker 1: that they know what they're doing. And when they assure

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Speaker 1: you that they do, don't be too quick to believe them.

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Speaker 1: But I also want to take a step back, because

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Speaker 1: to tell these stories of disasters we rely on others.

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Speaker 1: People like Bill Penny, who asked thoughtful questions of the

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Speaker 1: windscale workers straight after the fire and wrote a fair

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Speaker 1: and insightful report. People like Lorna Arnold, who thirty years

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Speaker 1: later wrote a book to put that report in context.

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Speaker 1: In two thousand and seven, the fiftieth anniversary of the

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Speaker 1: Windscale Fire, the BBC made a documentary. Now in her nineties,

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Speaker 1: Lorna agreed to take part. She was still as committed

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Speaker 1: as ever telling a story that gave credit where it

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Speaker 1: was due.

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Speaker 3: Tom Tooey was the most impressive character. He was pretty

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Speaker 3: young for his senior post. He was a lively, handsome man,

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Speaker 3: sort of bold features at the mass of gorgeous auburn

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Speaker 3: hair flowing back from his forehead.

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Speaker 1: Tom Tooey was brave and decisive and fighting the fire.

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Speaker 1: He's a hero, no doubt of the Windscale story. But

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Speaker 1: I also want to celebrate Lorna Arnold, because sometimes the

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Speaker 1: storyteller can be a hero too. For a full list

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Speaker 1: of sources, see the show notes at Timharford dot com.

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Speaker 1: Cautionary Tales is written by me Tim Harford with Andrew Wright,

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Speaker 1: Alice Fines, and Ryan Billy. It's produced by Georgia Mills

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Speaker 1: and Marilyn Rust. The sound design and original music are

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00:39:24,890 --> 00:39:28,450
Speaker 1: the work of Pascal Wise bend A d Afhaffrey edited

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Speaker 1: the scripts. The show also wouldn't have been possible without

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Speaker 1: the work of Jacob Weisberg, Gretta Cohene, Eric Sandler, Christina Sullivan,

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00:39:37,370 --> 00:39:41,770
Speaker 1: Kira Posey, and Owen Miller. You can support Cautionary Tales

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00:39:41,810 --> 00:39:46,250
Speaker 1: by joining My Cautionary Club at Patreon dot com slash

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00:39:46,370 --> 00:39:51,690
Speaker 1: Cautionary Club for exclusive bonus episodes, newsletters, ad free listening,

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00:39:51,770 --> 00:39:56,250
Speaker 1: and other exciting perks. Alternatively, you can join Pushkin Plus

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00:39:56,290 --> 00:39:59,490
Speaker 1: on our Apple show page for continued benefits from our

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Speaker 1: show and others across the Pushkin network.

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Speaker 2: You speaking of Start,