Bunker mentality

 An article by BBC Media and Arts Correspondent David Sillito, "What happens if all the lights go out ? This is the plan for a 'Black Sky' event" has made waves in the field of 'emergency broadcasting'. 

David states "Only a small number of staff know the full details, but from what I have gleaned, about 100 people in the BBC will run a special emergency radio studio. It will have secure lines of communication not dependent on the internet, and fuel, water and food to ensure it can operate without resupply for at least three days."

On an insider's tour of the BBC Broadcasting House extension in the 70s, I was allowed to glance into two connecting sub-basement rooms - one with bunk beds, basic toilet and kitchen facilities, and shelves of tinned food;  the other with a range of LPs (long-playing records) next to a small studio desk with 'grams' (record players). I wasn't allowed to flick through the musical choices that might console a nation frying on the outside, but the first was by Alma Cogan. 

During my time in Broadcasting House, I got to know the identities of some of the chosen few (not 100) who would head 'downstairs' rather than out of the building to fend for themselves when the flag went up. I was never envious; the bunker still relied on external air, which in some forms of warfare could be a real problem. 

In later life, I became part of the project rebuilding a new Broadcasting House, largely on the footprint of that old extension. The demolition wasn't easy; we had to prepare for new 26m piles to be 'vibrated' into the ground. Did we have to use dynamite on the bunker ?  I might have been nearby when one Friday afternoon I heard our construction lead trying to reassure a shaken Director of Radio, and his description of the work underway was economical. 

There was no new bunker in the new build.