Bunker

In the basement beneath where I work there is a nuclear bunker.

It feels odd even typing this, as the nuclear threat has moved on from total global catastrophe to localised single explosion worries. North Korea, Iran etc we are all told that these are where the new nuclear threat comes from not the great Russian bear.

But back when men were real men and they had bushy moustaches and briar pipes, the Nuclear Holocaust was viewed as almost inevitable and we had to make plans for it. The wine cellars in the old mansion house where I work were re-enforced and had a binding coating over the interior surface to hold the brickwork together from any concussive force.

You open a door that looks almost identical to any other in the office and this leads to a narrow set of stairs which ends in a foot thick blast door. This immense portal swings easily open thanks to a counterweight mechanism but you still can't help noticing the enormous steel bolts and latches which would hold out the unwanted plebs once the bombs had started to fall.

This little corner of North Wales certainly wouldn't be on any ones primary nuclear strike lists and it's doubtful we would have made the secondary or tertiary lists either unless the Russians really considered Conwys Mussel farming as vital to the UKs Economy. So we be hit much by the radiation which would be spreading out from places like Liverpool and Manchester to the east and probably from RAF Valley on Anglesey to the west.

So the number of dying but not yet dead would be massive they would be on the outside of the door banging and wailing to be let in and you'd be stuck inside afraid to open the door for what they or the radiation would do to you.

Past the first door there is a small shower area, I imagine to wash off radiation suits rather than actual skin, and then there is a second slightly larger door. This gateway to the inner sanctum, like all the doors down there is outlined with fluorescent tape so when the lights go off you can see the after images of the doorways for a great deal of time. Of course the glowing fades after a day or so with no new light to recharge it so its not a long term solution for when the power goes off. Once into the bunker proper you can see the three large water tanks that can be filled and then sealed from the mains supply in a mater of minutes and the air filtration system that pumps and filters clean air in and old air out. These things are expensive though so there's no backups so you'd better pray that this one has been well maintained.

Then there's a series of rooms about the size of a small three bedroom flat, hardly the sort of place where you'd want to spend the rest of your years waiting the twenty odd years it would take the radiation to die down. I don't imagine the diet of dehydrated meals and vitamin pills would do much for you either.