A NUCLEAR bunker in York is screening films showing unseen footage of North Yorkshire's role in nuclear attack defence.
Tucked away down Monument Close off Acomb Road is York's Cold War Bunker, which played an important role in Britain and America’s defence against nuclear attacks in the 1960s to 1990s.
On the evenings of June 8 to 11, the bunker, which is now a museum, will be broadcasting unseen footage from the RAF Flylingdales archive of the construction of the iconic ‘golf balls’ on the North York Moors, which was a structure built to detect if the UK or US was going to be under nuclear attack.
The film is shown as part of an immersive experience in the bunker's Operations Room, complete with atmospheric surround sound and a darkened environment.
The audio is brought by One Key Magic - artist and Newcastle University historian Michael Mulvihill, who was the first artist in residence at RAF Flylingdales, in collaboration with producer Chris Tate, inspired by the Electronic Counter Counter Measures (ECCM) equipment at RAF Flylingdales.
Kevin Booth, the senior curator of the York Cold War bunker said: "The installation, mixing a mesmeric soundtrack with captivating historic footage, is incredibly powerful and made more so within the setting of the bunker.
“The work reminds us of the intimate connections between this obscure concrete structure in a York suburb and the most iconic structures of our Cold War anxieties.
“There is a generational gap between those of who can remember the Cold War and today, and people have remained largely ignorant about nuclear, but people’s anxieties about it have increased again due to the current Ukraine crisis.
“We are at no more of a threat now than before the Ukraine crisis – and this exhibition has been planned for a long time.
“This one plot in the outskirts of suburban York has a global connection throughout the Cold War and is an incredibly important part of Britain’s defence.”
The Ballistic Missile Early Warning System of the late 1950s to 1960s was a partnership between the UK and the US to provide radar coverage to counter intercontinental ballistic missile attacks.
The Flylingdales site on the North York Moors was built in the early 1960s along with two other stations in Greenland and Alaska, to complete the radar coverage for the US.
The York Cold War Bunker was built in 1961 to plot nuclear weapons exploding across Yorkshire, observe detonations and measure their long term impact.
The 600 volunteers trained to work in the bunker tracked nuclear weapons and would have to drop their lives and families and lock themselves away in the bunker for 30 days.
Tickets to be the exhibition can be booked here.
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