Burlington: Gallery 1

Broadcast on Tuesday 2nd December 2008 on BBC Radio 4 was a documentary detailing the story of Britain's nuclear defence.

In The Human Button, historian Professor Peter Hennessy spoke to the people who have operated Britain's nuclear deterrent over the years, including military commanders, politicians and MOD officials.

He also visited Northwood, the headquarters from which the order to fire would come today, and of most interest to people living in Wiltshire he ventured down to the secret nuclear bunker in Corsham code-named 'Burlington' which, in the 1960s, would have been the location for an alternative government in the event of all-out war.

A ward in the bunker hospital

Situated 100 feet below Corsham in a former Bath stone quarry the 35 acre bunker was designed to safely house up to 4,000 central Government personnel.

Peter Hennessy is escorted down to the bunker by quarry manager Andy Quinn and they are accompanied by Peter Hudson - an MOD official who was responsible for Burlington in the sixties, and David Young - who in the early seventies was an MOD Defence Secretary.

As they wander around the complex, Hennessy remarks on the different areas he comes across, and Hudson and Young share their memories and recollections.

At the time of the Cuban missile crisis in 1962 there was the very real possibility that the bunker would be activated - housing the Prime Minister, chiefs of staff and thousands of military personnel and civil servants.

Then, at the height of the Cold War, had the Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev made the decision to drop a nuclear bomb on Britain, our government's retaliation strategy would have been decided deep below Corsham in the Burlington bunker.