WEBVTT - "What a Bloody Mess we're in" - Britain's [REDACTED] Accident 0:00:15.410 --> 0:00:27.250 Pushkin. A nasty flu bug was going around Cumberland, in 0:00:27.290 --> 0:00:31.170 the northwest of England. Tom Tooey hadn't got it, but 0:00:31.290 --> 0:00:33.730 his wife and kids had, so he had taken the 0:00:33.810 --> 0:00:36.890 day off to look after them. At five o'clock in 0:00:36.930 --> 0:00:39.410 the afternoon, he got a call from work. 0:00:39.930 --> 0:00:40.610 Can you come in? 0:00:41.370 --> 0:00:47.090 There's a fire. Good God, said Towey. He got in 0:00:47.130 --> 0:00:50.810 his car and drove the quiet country lanes to his workplace. 0:00:51.610 --> 0:00:56.490 Cumberland was remote, They're not that remote. There were farms 0:00:56.530 --> 0:01:02.570 and villages. People lived there. That was a concern because 0:01:02.610 --> 0:01:07.850 to his workplace was a nuclear reactor. How bad was 0:01:07.890 --> 0:01:12.730 it exactly for a nuclear reactor to be on fire? Too? 0:01:12.770 --> 0:01:17.010 He wasn't sure. Nuclear technology was still very new in 0:01:17.090 --> 0:01:21.290 nineteen fifty seven. Only just over a decade had passed 0:01:21.450 --> 0:01:25.530 since the first nuclear bombs were dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. 0:01:26.410 --> 0:01:30.250 The nuclear accidents at Three Mile Island and Schnobyl laid 0:01:30.410 --> 0:01:35.490 decades in the future as too. He later reflected, mankind 0:01:35.730 --> 0:01:41.770 had never faced anything like this ever before, So no, 0:01:42.650 --> 0:01:45.970 Tom Towey wasn't sure exactly how bad it was that 0:01:46.010 --> 0:01:50.970 the nuclear reactor was on fire, but clearly it wasn't good. 0:01:51.650 --> 0:01:55.210 How much radioactivity might leak out if the fire got worse, 0:01:56.290 --> 0:01:59.650 how much might be leaking out already. The wife of 0:01:59.690 --> 0:02:02.690 another worker recalls getting a phone call at about the 0:02:02.730 --> 0:02:06.250 same time as Tooey was called in. Where's the baby, 0:02:06.970 --> 0:02:10.970 asked the worker in his proud, said the wife. In 0:02:11.010 --> 0:02:15.330 the garden getting some sun. Bring him inside, said the worker. 0:02:15.890 --> 0:02:19.050 Close the doors and the windows. Oh, unlock the hens 0:02:19.050 --> 0:02:23.410 in the henhouse. Then don't go out. I won't be 0:02:23.410 --> 0:02:29.730 home tonight too. He arrives at Windscale. It's a collection 0:02:29.850 --> 0:02:35.690 of stark concrete buildings on the coast with two massive chimneys. 0:02:36.530 --> 0:02:40.650 It was built in a hurry just a few years ago. 0:02:40.930 --> 0:02:44.970 Why the hurry? The United States and the Soviet Union 0:02:45.290 --> 0:02:48.850 both had the nuclear bomb. The British government wanted the 0:02:48.850 --> 0:02:53.970 bomb too. Besides, uclear energy was new, exciting and full 0:02:54.050 --> 0:02:59.090 of possibilities, As the UK Atomic Energy Authority was eager 0:02:59.130 --> 0:03:04.090 to make clear in its promotional films, Windscale is unique. 0:03:04.570 --> 0:03:08.010 It is science fiction, intruding on our sober lives and 0:03:08.210 --> 0:03:11.290 let us up very great produce our plutonium, a pure 0:03:11.370 --> 0:03:15.090 atomic fuel of both industrial and weapons projects. 0:03:16.890 --> 0:03:19.530 Too. He thinks had better see this fire for himself. 0:03:20.450 --> 0:03:23.810 There's only one way to do that. He climbs eighty 0:03:23.890 --> 0:03:27.610 feet up a metal staircase to an inspection hole. He 0:03:27.690 --> 0:03:31.570 lifts the metal cover of the hole and peers down 0:03:31.650 --> 0:03:38.490 into the reactor. Below him is a raging inferno. A 0:03:38.650 --> 0:03:43.730 thought flashes across Tom to his mind, what a bloody 0:03:43.770 --> 0:03:49.210 mess we're in. I'm Tim Harford and you're listening to 0:03:49.410 --> 0:04:21.450 cautionary tales. Lorna Rainbow started school a year later than 0:04:21.490 --> 0:04:24.570 she could have. The school was over a mile from 0:04:24.570 --> 0:04:27.890 the farm her family rented, and they didn't have the 0:04:27.930 --> 0:04:31.250 time to walk her there and back. You had to 0:04:31.290 --> 0:04:33.810 work all hours to make ends meet as a tenant 0:04:33.850 --> 0:04:38.570 farmer in southern England in the early nineteen twenties. When 0:04:38.810 --> 0:04:43.170 Lorna was five, her parents thought she was probably still 0:04:43.250 --> 0:04:46.290 a bit too young to walk the mile to school 0:04:46.290 --> 0:04:51.490 on her own, but at six, off she went. The 0:04:51.610 --> 0:04:55.050 walk to school was down a rutted lane, dusty in 0:04:55.090 --> 0:05:00.010 the summer, muddy in the winter. Traffic wasn't a problem. 0:05:00.330 --> 0:05:03.610 There might be an occasional horse and cart, but the 0:05:03.690 --> 0:05:08.490 lane passed only a couple of other houses. The main danger, 0:05:09.170 --> 0:05:12.850 at least in six year old Lorna's mind, was a 0:05:12.850 --> 0:05:16.250 big oak tree where rumor had it that a man 0:05:16.450 --> 0:05:21.970 had once been hanged. Could it be haunted? Every day? 0:05:22.370 --> 0:05:28.690 Lorna ran past the tree, her heart thumping, But the 0:05:28.730 --> 0:05:34.210 rest of the walk was enchanting. Lorna remembers a lovely 0:05:34.370 --> 0:05:39.650 profusion of wild flowers by the roadside. Birds and birds 0:05:39.650 --> 0:05:43.970 sold tiny emerald green frogs in the puddles in wet 0:05:44.010 --> 0:05:46.810 and stormy. Whether I would sing as I splashed through 0:05:46.810 --> 0:05:50.690 the puddles and my rubber boots in winter every winter 0:05:51.450 --> 0:05:58.290 the magic of snow. The school had just two rooms, 0:05:58.890 --> 0:06:01.930 one for little kids one for bigger kids. Up to 0:06:01.970 --> 0:06:05.530 the age of fourteen, then you'd leave to work on 0:06:05.610 --> 0:06:09.610 a farm, or as a housemaid, or maybe a shop assistant. 0:06:10.210 --> 0:06:13.770 The local town had a Woolworth's. It also had a 0:06:13.810 --> 0:06:17.290 secondary school, and you could sit an exam to earn 0:06:17.330 --> 0:06:22.010 a scholarship, but nobody from Lorna's school had ever even tried. 0:06:23.210 --> 0:06:29.850 Further education wasn't something kids aspired to, especially girls. Lorna 0:06:29.930 --> 0:06:34.170 remembers a poem her grandmother used to recite, be good, 0:06:34.330 --> 0:06:39.650 sweet maid, and let who will be clever. Lorna's dad 0:06:39.810 --> 0:06:44.530 was more encouraging be good, sweet maid. He'd tell her 0:06:44.530 --> 0:06:50.770 of a wink and if you must be clever. On 0:06:50.850 --> 0:06:55.450 the day of the exam, Lorna was terrified. A vast 0:06:55.650 --> 0:07:00.370 school hall, endless rows of desks, and a paper that 0:07:00.530 --> 0:07:07.330 said intelligence test. She'd never seen anything like it. But 0:07:07.370 --> 0:07:10.370 the test turned out to be a wonderful new game. 0:07:12.090 --> 0:07:16.370 At her new school, the girls spoke of loftier ambitions. 0:07:17.010 --> 0:07:19.730 Maybe they could be a nurse, or a teacher, or 0:07:19.770 --> 0:07:22.850 a secretary at least for a few years until they 0:07:22.850 --> 0:07:28.650 got married. Lorna liked English and history, but physics in 0:07:28.730 --> 0:07:32.970 chemistry were barely on the curriculum. I had no idea. 0:07:33.250 --> 0:07:38.450 She recalls that in nineteen thirty two, two scientists in 0:07:38.610 --> 0:07:44.010 Cambridge had split the atom. This fact would be central 0:07:44.170 --> 0:07:50.970 to my later life. In Cambridge in the nineteen thirties, 0:07:51.490 --> 0:07:55.730 a young man called Bill Penny was doing original research 0:07:55.850 --> 0:07:59.770 for his doctorate in quantum physics. Though if you'd met 0:07:59.850 --> 0:08:03.410 him you might not have guessed it. Penny was burly, 0:08:04.170 --> 0:08:08.250 one hundred meter runner and on the soccer pitch, a robust, 0:08:08.490 --> 0:08:12.810 bustling center forward of the old fashioned type. He was 0:08:12.930 --> 0:08:17.050 shy and prone to blushing. He talked in a drawl 0:08:17.330 --> 0:08:20.570 and had a lot sided grin permanently on his face. 0:08:21.330 --> 0:08:24.930 His wooly sweaters were a bit too baggy. He looked 0:08:25.170 --> 0:08:28.650 and spoke, said one journalist, as though he was a 0:08:28.650 --> 0:08:36.130 bit simple. When the Second World War broke out, the 0:08:36.170 --> 0:08:40.450 government asked Penny to make calculations about blast waves from 0:08:40.490 --> 0:08:46.530 explosions as German bombs rained down on London. Penny became 0:08:46.730 --> 0:08:50.130 such an expert that in nineteen forty four he went 0:08:50.170 --> 0:08:54.370 to Los Alamos to join the Manhattan Project. At first, 0:08:54.410 --> 0:08:57.130 his American colleagues didn't know what to make of him. 0:08:57.530 --> 0:09:01.930 He gave a talk explaining in gruesome detail the effects 0:09:01.970 --> 0:09:05.530 of last waves on the human body, all with that 0:09:06.050 --> 0:09:14.730 amiable grin. They nicknamed him the Smiling Killer. But Penny 0:09:14.850 --> 0:09:21.250 soon won friends. He was completely without pretense. He had 0:09:21.490 --> 0:09:27.210 absolutely no side or standoffishness. Someone who hosted him recalls 0:09:27.770 --> 0:09:29.770 it was like having a teddy bear in the house. 0:09:30.810 --> 0:09:34.170 But the teddy bear had a mind like a razor. 0:09:35.130 --> 0:09:39.250 When the Americans wanted to know how high above Hiroshima 0:09:39.330 --> 0:09:43.850 and Nagasaki to detonate their bombs, it was Penny they 0:09:43.890 --> 0:09:48.890 trusted with the calculation. Afterwards, Penny flew to Japan and 0:09:49.090 --> 0:09:53.410 roamed through the ruined cities, looking for clues that would 0:09:53.490 --> 0:09:57.890 let him calculate exactly how much power the blasted unleashed. 0:09:58.570 --> 0:10:06.890 He worked it out by mapping crumpled gasoline cans. Back 0:10:06.970 --> 0:10:11.490 in Britain, Penny looked forward to a quiet life in academia. 0:10:12.250 --> 0:10:16.690 But the government had other ideas. Britain. They told him 0:10:17.130 --> 0:10:23.130 needed the atom bomb. As it happened, Penny agreed. Had 0:10:23.170 --> 0:10:27.010 seen up close in Japan the horrors of the bomb, 0:10:27.770 --> 0:10:30.490 he bought the logic that Britain would be safer with 0:10:30.570 --> 0:10:34.690 its own nuclear deterrent. But now the war was over, 0:10:35.250 --> 0:10:38.650 the US had decided no longer to share its nuclear 0:10:38.690 --> 0:10:42.770 knowledge with its allies. The only person who can build 0:10:42.810 --> 0:10:46.490 a bomb for Britain, the government told Penny, is you. 0:10:49.130 --> 0:10:53.650 Penny agreed reluctantly to lead a team of scientists that 0:10:53.930 --> 0:10:59.010 rapidly grew from the hundreds to the thousands. One interviewer 0:10:59.130 --> 0:11:03.290 invited Penny to big himself up. How many people are 0:11:03.330 --> 0:11:08.930 working under you, Penny replied, in his laconic drawl about her. 0:11:11.650 --> 0:11:15.410 By nineteen fifty two, Penny was ready for the first 0:11:15.610 --> 0:11:20.170 test of Britain's new atomic technology in a remote part 0:11:20.210 --> 0:11:24.930 of Australia. The Prime Minister waited anxiously to hear if 0:11:24.970 --> 0:11:29.690 the test had failed or succeeded. It said he had 0:11:29.770 --> 0:11:36.010 two telegrams ready. One began, tough luck, Dr Penny, the 0:11:36.090 --> 0:11:43.090 other well done, Sir William. A journalist later asked Sir 0:11:43.210 --> 0:11:48.290 William Penny to describe how the test had gone. It 0:11:48.330 --> 0:11:54.170 went off, he replied, like a bomb. The British government 0:11:54.450 --> 0:11:57.650 hoped to use the successful test to persuade America to 0:11:57.690 --> 0:12:02.130 agree to a partnership to share nuclear knowledge. But while 0:12:02.170 --> 0:12:06.770 Britain had been catching up, America had moved ahead from 0:12:06.770 --> 0:12:11.010 the A bomb to the H bomb. H bombs worked 0:12:11.130 --> 0:12:15.530 very differently and were much more powerful. Britain would have 0:12:15.650 --> 0:12:20.530 to build an H bomb too. They'd need plutonium, lots 0:12:20.730 --> 0:12:28.970 of plutonium, and quickly they'd manufacture it. At Windscale Cautionary 0:12:29.050 --> 0:12:40.490 tails will be back after the break. What a bloody 0:12:40.490 --> 0:12:45.610 mess we're in. Tom Tooy closes the inspection hole and 0:12:45.690 --> 0:12:50.490 descends the eighty feet of metal steps, thinking about his options. 0:12:51.810 --> 0:12:55.850 The nuclear reactor at Windscale was cooled by air, not 0:12:56.010 --> 0:13:00.810 by water. If something's too hot, blowing more air on 0:13:00.890 --> 0:13:03.490 it is generally a good way to cool it down. 0:13:04.570 --> 0:13:07.690 But if something's on fire blowing air on it is 0:13:07.730 --> 0:13:11.210 going to make the fire worse. Could he turn off 0:13:11.250 --> 0:13:15.010 the fans to try to put the fire out? He could, 0:13:15.930 --> 0:13:19.250 but it was risky. Only part of the reactor was 0:13:19.250 --> 0:13:23.450 on fire, the fans were still cooling the rest. Turning 0:13:23.530 --> 0:13:26.770 off the fans could make the rest overheat, which might 0:13:26.810 --> 0:13:31.250 make things worse. It was a last resort. Could he 0:13:31.770 --> 0:13:35.210 dump water on the reactor to try to put the 0:13:35.210 --> 0:13:41.730 fire out? He could, but it was risky. The reactor 0:13:41.850 --> 0:13:45.930 core was made from graphite. Picture a kind of honeycomb, 0:13:46.410 --> 0:13:51.530 and inside each hole a series of metal canisters containing 0:13:51.650 --> 0:13:55.770 uranium fuel. What would happen if you dumped a load 0:13:55.810 --> 0:14:01.290 of water on a burning mass of uranium, metal and graphite. 0:14:01.490 --> 0:14:06.810 Nobody was sure, as Tom Tooey said, mankind had never 0:14:06.890 --> 0:14:12.090 faced anything like this, ever, that it might release gas 0:14:12.130 --> 0:14:16.610 that could cause an explosion. Water was a second from 0:14:16.730 --> 0:14:21.610 last resort. Workers at Windscale had been trying to create 0:14:21.650 --> 0:14:26.170 a firebreak by using steel poles to push the uranium 0:14:26.210 --> 0:14:29.810 canisters out of the honeycomb holes around the part of 0:14:29.810 --> 0:14:34.970 the core where the fire was burning. Now dripping with 0:14:35.170 --> 0:14:39.370 sweat in their heavy protective suits, they start trying to 0:14:39.610 --> 0:14:44.170 shove the burning canisters out of the fiery core itself. 0:14:45.330 --> 0:14:49.730 It's hard and canisters are twisted by the heat. The 0:14:49.810 --> 0:14:54.690 poles come out, glowing red and dripping molten steel. They 0:14:54.730 --> 0:14:58.330 need more steel poles. They made the scaffolding on a 0:14:58.410 --> 0:15:04.810 nearby construction site. They were heroes that night, an officer 0:15:04.890 --> 0:15:09.250 later said of the workers. But were their heroics having 0:15:09.290 --> 0:15:14.930 an effect? At close to midnight, Tom Tooey climbs the 0:15:15.050 --> 0:15:19.330 eighty feet of steps again to peer through the inspection hole. 0:15:21.010 --> 0:15:34.050 The fire has spread. At Lorna Rainbow's secondary school for girls, 0:15:34.770 --> 0:15:39.650 nobody had ever gone on to university. Lorna's teachers encouraged 0:15:39.690 --> 0:15:46.210 her to sit the scholarship exams once again. She aced them. 0:15:46.410 --> 0:15:50.130 Soon after she finished her English degree, the Second World 0:15:50.170 --> 0:15:54.890 War broke out. As men signed up to fight, women 0:15:55.170 --> 0:15:59.370 filled the jobs they vacated. Lorna received a telegram from 0:15:59.410 --> 0:16:02.970 the War Office inviting her to interview for the post 0:16:03.010 --> 0:16:10.530 of Junior administrative Assistant. At first, she felt bewilled. There 0:16:10.610 --> 0:16:14.090 was so much to learn, she recalls, and I was 0:16:14.210 --> 0:16:18.210 woefully ignorant. I had no office experience and knew nothing 0:16:18.250 --> 0:16:23.090 about the army. She began by arranging rooms for meetings 0:16:23.250 --> 0:16:27.650 and being a general gopher. Then her boss asked her 0:16:27.690 --> 0:16:30.730 to write up the meeting minutes and then to draft 0:16:30.810 --> 0:16:34.090 papers and briefing notes. He'd go through them with her, 0:16:34.250 --> 0:16:38.970 sentence by sentence. What's your basis for saying this? Should 0:16:39.010 --> 0:16:43.610 you explain that point more fully? Think? Who's your readership? 0:16:44.530 --> 0:16:47.370 Tell your story in a way your readers will understand. 0:16:48.810 --> 0:16:52.050 She thanked him for his kindness in mentoring her, and 0:16:52.130 --> 0:16:56.530 he laughed he wasn't being kind, He'd simply seen how 0:16:56.650 --> 0:17:02.290 quickly she could learn. Lorna was promoted to work on 0:17:02.450 --> 0:17:08.690 plans for the occupation of Berlin. When Germany surrendered, she 0:17:08.770 --> 0:17:12.330 was sent to Berlin. She spent her first night in 0:17:12.410 --> 0:17:16.970 a ground floor flat with broken windows, listening to Russian 0:17:17.170 --> 0:17:21.530 soldiers marauled through the streets, singing drunken songs and shooting 0:17:21.570 --> 0:17:24.690 in the air. What if they came in through her 0:17:24.730 --> 0:17:29.330 broken window? The next morning she mentioned her concern to 0:17:29.370 --> 0:17:37.370 an officer here. He said, have a revolver. Lorna worked 0:17:37.410 --> 0:17:40.330 on setting up administration of the British Stone of Berlin 0:17:41.130 --> 0:17:43.170 and was surprised to find that she was senior to 0:17:43.210 --> 0:17:46.970 some of the army clerks. Yes, sir, let's say to her, 0:17:47.290 --> 0:17:51.410 Miss Rainbow, Sir. But the British were strapped for resources. 0:17:51.890 --> 0:17:56.650 Their needs support from America. Lorna was sent to Washington 0:17:56.730 --> 0:18:00.250 to help with the negotiation. At a lunch to celebrate 0:18:00.250 --> 0:18:03.970 the deal, the Secretary of State began his speech with 0:18:04.050 --> 0:18:13.970 a smile in Lorna's direction. Lady and gentlemen. Lorna spent 0:18:14.130 --> 0:18:18.050 three years in Washington, profiled in the newspapers as a 0:18:18.170 --> 0:18:26.330 vital cog in the diplomatic wheel. Then she resigned. Why 0:18:26.450 --> 0:18:30.890 it seemed perfectly natural, She later explained, the world was 0:18:31.090 --> 0:18:35.810 changing from a wartime to a post war situation. Women 0:18:35.930 --> 0:18:38.890 who had filled the gaps during the war were generally 0:18:38.930 --> 0:18:42.450 being displaced. It never occurred to me to think that 0:18:42.690 --> 0:18:45.850 I had established any rights to a special position in 0:18:45.890 --> 0:18:50.810 this man's world. With hindsight, she says, she could have 0:18:50.930 --> 0:18:56.010 continued her career, but at the time, I simply felt 0:18:56.050 --> 0:19:01.130 that I'd done my bit. Lorna moved back to England 0:19:01.970 --> 0:19:05.090 and got a low level office job, and her husband 0:19:06.410 --> 0:19:10.250 wasn't that what women were supposed to do? Be good, 0:19:10.450 --> 0:19:20.730 sweet maid, and let who will be clever? At one 0:19:20.730 --> 0:19:23.890 o'clock in the morning, the phone rings at the home 0:19:23.930 --> 0:19:28.570 of the Chief Constable of Cumberland. A few years earlier, 0:19:28.650 --> 0:19:32.370 he'd met bosses at Windscale to agree on procedures in 0:19:32.450 --> 0:19:36.810 case of a major emergency, which was he was assured 0:19:37.450 --> 0:19:42.090 only a remote possibility. Could he dust off that file 0:19:42.250 --> 0:19:47.970 and start to implement the procedures? The Chief Constable makes 0:19:48.090 --> 0:19:53.490 calls through the night. A fleet of buses descends on Cumberland, 0:19:54.250 --> 0:20:01.570 ready to evacuate villages downwind of the reactor. At Windscale. 0:20:01.650 --> 0:20:06.010 Tom Toohey searches desperately for an alternative to water as 0:20:06.050 --> 0:20:09.650 a way to quench the fire. A huge amount of 0:20:09.650 --> 0:20:14.730 some inert gas like argone might do it. But where 0:20:14.770 --> 0:20:17.090 is he going to get a huge amount of argone 0:20:17.490 --> 0:20:20.770 in rural England. In the middle of the night, he 0:20:20.890 --> 0:20:24.770 tracks down a tanker of carbon dioxide. It's worth a try. 0:20:26.250 --> 0:20:30.330 At four in the morning, he pumps in the carbon dioxide, 0:20:31.050 --> 0:20:35.250 then climbs the eighty feet of steps again to peer 0:20:35.370 --> 0:20:42.130 through the inspection hole. The fire still burns. They'll have 0:20:42.250 --> 0:20:46.570 to risk the water. Two. He lines up the hoses 0:20:46.650 --> 0:21:02.610 with the honeycomb holes and turns on the taps. Sir 0:21:02.690 --> 0:21:06.610 William Penny had got a knighthood in nineteen fifty two 0:21:07.530 --> 0:21:11.930 for building Briton's for A bomb, But the reward he 0:21:12.010 --> 0:21:17.170 really wanted was a quiet life in academia, not a chance, 0:21:17.490 --> 0:21:20.530 said the government. You need to build us an H bomb. 0:21:21.850 --> 0:21:26.850 Penny dutifully got to work, despite giving everyone the general 0:21:26.890 --> 0:21:30.530 impression that he would much rather be digging his garden. 0:21:32.610 --> 0:21:37.410 The task became urgent. America and Russia were discussing an 0:21:37.570 --> 0:21:42.650 international treaty to ban nuclear tests. Penny would have to 0:21:42.730 --> 0:21:47.010 test his H bomb before that ban came in. He 0:21:47.090 --> 0:21:51.050 knew he wasn't ready, and he thought the test might fail. 0:21:52.810 --> 0:21:58.130 It did, but it brought a backup plan, a massive 0:21:58.330 --> 0:22:01.650 A bomb that might make a big enough blast to 0:22:01.770 --> 0:22:04.890 fool a lay person into thinking it was an H bomb. 0:22:05.970 --> 0:22:09.850 Those who knew the secret called the massive A bomb 0:22:10.530 --> 0:22:17.730 the Penny Dreadful. It went off impressively. Assembled journalists duly 0:22:17.810 --> 0:22:22.290 reported that Penny's H bomb test had been a great success. 0:22:23.130 --> 0:22:31.690 Penny said nothing. In nineteen fifty seven, the US President 0:22:31.970 --> 0:22:35.450 finally agreed to the British Prime Minister's request for a 0:22:35.570 --> 0:22:41.930 nuclear information sharing partnership, but Congress still had to approve 0:22:42.010 --> 0:22:45.770 the deal. The Prime minister could only hope that nothing 0:22:45.810 --> 0:22:49.770 would happen in the meantime that might call into question 0:22:50.530 --> 0:22:56.970 Britain's competence as a nuclear power. Then news reached the 0:22:56.970 --> 0:23:02.730 Prime Minister from Cumberland. The reactor at Windscale was on 0:23:02.810 --> 0:23:11.370 fire and nobody knew how bad it might be. Water 0:23:11.650 --> 0:23:16.970 gushes through the hoses onto the burning reactor core. Tom 0:23:17.050 --> 0:23:23.090 Tooey waits anxiously, an explosion might kill him, but there's 0:23:23.090 --> 0:23:29.130 no explosion. Once again, he climbs the eighty feet of 0:23:29.210 --> 0:23:35.570 steps to peer through the inspection hole. The water isn't working, 0:23:36.450 --> 0:23:41.410 the fire is still raging. It's time for the last 0:23:41.450 --> 0:23:50.610 resort two. He shuts off the fans, the fire dies out, 0:23:51.970 --> 0:23:57.410 the rest of the reactor doesn't overheat. At midday, the 0:23:57.570 --> 0:24:03.170 Chief Constable of Cumberland gets another phone call, panic over 0:24:04.450 --> 0:24:09.250 no need to evacuate any villages. Tom Tooey drives back 0:24:09.290 --> 0:24:15.930 home to his sick wife and children and collapses into bed. Exhausted. 0:24:19.050 --> 0:24:23.290 But why had the fire happened? They were bound to 0:24:23.330 --> 0:24:28.370 be awkward questions from the Americans. They needed answers, and 0:24:28.650 --> 0:24:33.010 quickly the government set up an inquiry and asks their 0:24:33.090 --> 0:24:39.090 go to nuclear experts to share it. Sir William Penny 0:24:43.290 --> 0:24:48.810 lorna rainbow took her husband's name. Now she was Lorna Arnold, 0:24:49.850 --> 0:24:53.370 but her husband turned out to be secretly struggling with 0:24:53.450 --> 0:24:57.850 his sexuality. He came out as gay and left her, 0:24:58.650 --> 0:25:02.330 not daring to tell her to her face. By the 0:25:02.410 --> 0:25:06.410 time she received his letter of farewell, he had left 0:25:06.410 --> 0:25:10.970 the country and she was left alone with two young 0:25:11.050 --> 0:25:17.410 children and a low level office job. One lunchtime in 0:25:17.530 --> 0:25:21.010 nineteen fifty eight, Lorna sat at the desk in her 0:25:21.130 --> 0:25:25.050 office in London with a cheese sandwich brought from home 0:25:25.770 --> 0:25:29.890 and a cup of instant coffee, trying to summon up 0:25:29.930 --> 0:25:34.930 the enthusiasm to embark on a fresh pile of tedious papers. 0:25:35.930 --> 0:25:39.090 They were sunny outside. She decided to go for a 0:25:39.130 --> 0:25:42.890 walk and cheer herself up with a proper coffee from 0:25:42.930 --> 0:25:46.130 one of the new Italian places that were opening in London. 0:25:47.130 --> 0:25:51.250 There she bumped into a man she hadn't seen for years. 0:25:51.890 --> 0:25:55.810 They'd been in Berlin together. How's your life turned out, 0:25:56.570 --> 0:26:01.050 the man asked, I'm forty two years old, said Lorna. 0:26:01.930 --> 0:26:05.090 I'm bringing up two sons on my own. My job 0:26:05.130 --> 0:26:09.810 doesn't pay much and it bores me senseless. The man 0:26:09.930 --> 0:26:14.770 was shocked. How had that happened. He had seen in 0:26:14.810 --> 0:26:19.690 the war how brilliant Lorna was. Everyone had except Larna herself. 0:26:21.290 --> 0:26:26.690 Leave it with me, he said. Lorna got a letter 0:26:27.250 --> 0:26:32.250 inviting her to an interview with the UK Atomic Energy Authority. 0:26:33.530 --> 0:26:38.370 We're expanding our staff, the director explained, because we're studying 0:26:38.410 --> 0:26:43.490 the aftermath of an incident at Windscale. Lorna said, I 0:26:43.530 --> 0:26:47.570 know nothing about science. I can't possibly be of any 0:26:47.690 --> 0:26:54.890 use to you. She got the job. Cautionary tales will 0:26:54.890 --> 0:27:07.290 be back after the break. Just six days had passed 0:27:07.290 --> 0:27:12.810 since the fire when so William Penny arrived at Windscale. 0:27:13.250 --> 0:27:17.290 He called in the workers, still drained from their sleepless night. 0:27:18.610 --> 0:27:23.370 One recalls feeling intimidated at first Penny was a big man, 0:27:24.450 --> 0:27:30.730 but he soon found that Penny was also extremely pleasant, courteous, thoughtful, 0:27:31.690 --> 0:27:38.970 very polite. Indeed, the story Penny heard began five years earlier. 0:27:39.450 --> 0:27:45.050 Soon after Windscale opened, workers had noticed a sudden increase 0:27:45.130 --> 0:27:50.010 in temperature in part of the reactor core. Nobody understood it. 0:27:51.010 --> 0:27:55.370 Nuclear technology was still very new. It turned out to 0:27:55.410 --> 0:28:01.250 be something called Vigner energy. The reactor core, remember, was 0:28:01.290 --> 0:28:06.530 a graphite honeycomb in which were placed cartridges of uranium 0:28:06.850 --> 0:28:11.610 as radioactive particles from the urania and buffeted that graphite honeycomb. 0:28:12.130 --> 0:28:16.530 They knocked atoms in the graphite out of place. This 0:28:16.690 --> 0:28:20.570 caused a build up of Vigner energy, which could randomly 0:28:20.610 --> 0:28:25.410 release itself in a burst of heat. This was a problem. 0:28:25.850 --> 0:28:31.170 You don't want bits of your reactor randomly overheating. To 0:28:31.210 --> 0:28:34.050 prevent that, they'd have to release the Vigner energy in 0:28:34.090 --> 0:28:39.410 a controlled way. Every few months, the windscale workers performed 0:28:39.450 --> 0:28:43.610 a Vigner release. They let the reactor core heat up, 0:28:44.490 --> 0:28:48.610 not too much, just enough for the graphite atoms to 0:28:48.730 --> 0:28:55.370 safely rearrange themselves. They'd done this Vigner release eight times. 0:28:56.010 --> 0:29:00.930 It worked kind of but not in the same way. 0:29:01.050 --> 0:29:05.330 Every time, as they let the core heat up, it 0:29:05.370 --> 0:29:11.810 would heat unevenly. They'd have to decid keep heating to 0:29:11.890 --> 0:29:15.010 get the cooler parts of the core to the required temperature, 0:29:15.930 --> 0:29:20.130 or stop heating to prevent the hotter parts from getting 0:29:20.170 --> 0:29:25.410 too hot. There was no operating manual. The workers just 0:29:25.490 --> 0:29:30.090 had to figure it out as best they could. On 0:29:30.170 --> 0:29:34.050 the ninth Vigna release, it seemed they'd applied too much 0:29:34.130 --> 0:29:40.730 heat and the core caught fire. But what really caused 0:29:40.770 --> 0:29:44.570 the fire was that nobody at Windscale really understood what 0:29:44.610 --> 0:29:49.490 they were doing. Why did each vignim release happen differently? 0:29:50.330 --> 0:29:54.890 They didn't know, and they were working with only partial information. 0:29:56.170 --> 0:29:59.850 There weren't enough instruments in the core to check temperatures everywhere. 0:30:00.890 --> 0:30:05.570 They were also understaffed. In the hurry to build the bomb, 0:30:06.330 --> 0:30:10.890 the British nuclear program had expanded too before enough workers 0:30:10.930 --> 0:30:16.330 could be properly trained. After ten days in Windscale, Penny 0:30:16.530 --> 0:30:22.250 wrote up his findings. These explained the underlying problems. He 0:30:22.330 --> 0:30:26.210 didn't blame the workers for the fire, and he praised 0:30:26.250 --> 0:30:29.730 how they had fought it. They were prompt and efficient, 0:30:30.090 --> 0:30:37.090 he said, and displayed considerable devotion to duty. Penny's report 0:30:37.730 --> 0:30:43.170 landed on the Prime Minister's desk. The Prime Minister was 0:30:43.410 --> 0:30:50.370 horrified it made the British nuclear program look amateurish. If 0:30:50.450 --> 0:30:54.130 members of the US Congress saw this, they might refuse 0:30:54.250 --> 0:30:59.930 to approve Britain as a nuclear partner. Penny's report couldn't 0:30:59.970 --> 0:31:03.890 be published. The Prime Minister ordered that the report be 0:31:04.010 --> 0:31:07.610 locked away in a filing cabinet and issued his own 0:31:07.890 --> 0:31:15.290 summary instead. His summary blamed the workers. They'd made an 0:31:15.410 --> 0:31:24.690 error of judgment, he said, sorry, won't happen again. Congress 0:31:24.810 --> 0:31:29.850 approved the NUCTAR partnership. Britain's scientists now had access to 0:31:30.090 --> 0:31:36.570 US expertise. A few months later, the US delegation visited Windscale. 0:31:37.250 --> 0:31:40.850 They were shown round by high powered bosses who hadn't 0:31:40.890 --> 0:31:44.490 been at Windscale during the fire, and told a story 0:31:44.490 --> 0:31:50.250 that bore no relation to what actually happened. Tom Tooey 0:31:50.290 --> 0:31:54.490 had to sit and listen, and they didn't let him 0:31:54.610 --> 0:31:58.450 say a word. What did you think of that? An 0:31:58.450 --> 0:32:02.610 interviewer later asked tooe How polite do you want me 0:32:02.650 --> 0:32:08.170 to be too? He replied, I thought, what a shower 0:32:08.170 --> 0:32:18.610 of bus. Under British law, secret government papers are usually 0:32:18.650 --> 0:32:24.370 published after thirty years have passed. Thirty years after Windscale 0:32:24.730 --> 0:32:28.770 in nineteen eighty seven, the time approached for the Penny 0:32:28.810 --> 0:32:32.170 Report to be taken out of its filing cabinet and 0:32:32.250 --> 0:32:37.450 made available to the public. That prospect worried the Records 0:32:37.450 --> 0:32:42.970 officer of the UK Atomic Energy Authority. The problem was 0:32:43.010 --> 0:32:46.610 that the Penny Report on its own wouldn't tell the 0:32:46.770 --> 0:32:51.450 full story of what had happened at Windscale. After writing 0:32:51.490 --> 0:32:55.770 his report, Penny had recommended further investigations into the issues 0:32:55.810 --> 0:33:00.570 he'd identified. Documents from those investigations were due to be 0:33:00.650 --> 0:33:05.450 released later in dribs and drabs, thirty years after each 0:33:05.650 --> 0:33:10.210 was filed away. Why don'ly release them all at once, 0:33:10.730 --> 0:33:13.250 said the records officer, And I'll write a book to 0:33:13.290 --> 0:33:18.970 accompany them. It's an important story, she said. It deserves 0:33:19.010 --> 0:33:22.050 to be told in a way that readers will understand. 0:33:23.650 --> 0:33:29.010 Good idea, said her bosses. When her book was published, 0:33:29.490 --> 0:33:32.770 the records officer got letters from workers who've been there 0:33:32.810 --> 0:33:37.170 at the time of the fire for thirty years. They said, 0:33:38.130 --> 0:33:43.530 we've been blamed for an error of judgment. Thank you 0:33:43.610 --> 0:33:48.930 for making it clear that it wasn't our fault. The 0:33:49.010 --> 0:33:54.090 records officer's name was Lorna Arnold. Lorna was now in 0:33:54.130 --> 0:33:58.850 her early seventies. She should have retired, but she had 0:33:58.890 --> 0:34:03.290 found a job she loved. Lorna was assisting a historian 0:34:03.490 --> 0:34:08.050 to produce an epic three volume history of Britain's post 0:34:08.130 --> 0:34:13.250 war nuclear work. When the historian retired, with the third 0:34:13.370 --> 0:34:17.010 volume not yet finished, Lorna took it upon herself to 0:34:17.050 --> 0:34:22.250 finish the job. They could not bear, said Lorna, to 0:34:22.290 --> 0:34:27.210