Porton Down, BBC4

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Discussion

LambShank

Original Poster:

14,673 posts

188 months

Tuesday 28th June 2016
quotequote all
Anyone watching?

A fascinating, yet ultimately ghoulish place.

phil-sti

2,668 posts

178 months

Tuesday 28th June 2016
quotequote all
LambShank said:
Anyone watching?

A fascinating, yet ultimately ghoulish place.
Yep did some NBC training back in the 90's there, wasn't fun at all.

Pupp

12,206 posts

271 months

Tuesday 28th June 2016
quotequote all
Terrifying stuff frown

Antony Moxey

8,016 posts

218 months

Wednesday 29th June 2016
quotequote all
Very scary, can't imagine working with stuff where a pin head's worth on your skin is enough to kill you. And was it me or did at the beginning the reporter say the chief exec was the only one he could name then proceeded to give the names of everyone else he interviewed? Whatever, fascinating programme.

MrAndyW

508 posts

147 months

Wednesday 29th June 2016
quotequote all
They always tried to bribe us with a months pay or 28 days leave.
RAF lads to clever for that, well most of them anyway.
We always told they were trying to find a cure for the common cold, yeah ok then,

Mothersruin

8,573 posts

98 months

Wednesday 29th June 2016
quotequote all
MrAndyW said:
They always tried to bribe us with a months pay or 28 days leave.
RAF lads to clever for that, well most of them anyway.
We always told they were trying to find a cure for the common cold, yeah ok then,
Same. It came up regularly when I was in the Army.

Lots of stories of people never returning to units once they'd been there.

smudgerebt

241 posts

112 months

Wednesday 29th June 2016
quotequote all
He didnt last long with the cs.

I always prefered doing that in winter, got rid of the cold/snot very quick.


Halmyre

11,148 posts

138 months

Wednesday 29th June 2016
quotequote all
I was there a few years back. Spooky place, driving through the gates after passing security, and still there's all those windowless buildings behind miles and miles of razor-wire fence. IIRC, it wasn't even shown on maps until fairly recently.

ofcorsa

3,527 posts

242 months

Wednesday 29th June 2016
quotequote all
My Dad worked on the incinerators there. Said its a really odd place to work, The reasons for the incinerators are pretty grim too.

boobles

15,241 posts

214 months

Wednesday 29th June 2016
quotequote all
Going to watch it on catch up. Be rude not to as I live few miles down the road.

Alias218

1,485 posts

161 months

Wednesday 29th June 2016
quotequote all
Watching the old mustard shell being cut open was quite shocking. Presumably from the WW1 era, I couldn't believe that the stuff inside still effervesced as soon as it was cut into. Horrible stuff.

Antony Moxey

8,016 posts

218 months

Wednesday 29th June 2016
quotequote all
Alias218 said:
Watching the old mustard shell being cut open was quite shocking. Presumably from the WW1 era, I couldn't believe that the stuff inside still effervesced as soon as it was cut into. Horrible stuff.
A number of years ago before a major refurbishment I had to survey the museum in Exeter. Away from public display were a number of rare items, including poisoned arrows and spears brought back from Cook's expeditions to the South Pacific. The ends were covered over, I assumed because they were sharp but was told it was also because the poison still worked. His expeditions were in the mid-late 1700s.

pidsy

7,958 posts

156 months

Wednesday 29th June 2016
quotequote all
back on tonight - 10pm.

put it on sky+ planner. looks interesting.

Charlie Michael

2,750 posts

183 months

Wednesday 29th June 2016
quotequote all
pidsy said:
back on tonight - 10pm.

put it on sky+ planner. looks interesting.
Cheers for that - i'll give it a watch. I applied for a Project Manager role there a couple of years ago. My dad knows the place well. smile

gareth h

3,503 posts

229 months

Wednesday 29th June 2016
quotequote all
MrAndyW said:
They always tried to bribe us with a months pay or 28 days leave.
RAF lads to clever for that, well most of them anyway.
We always told they were trying to find a cure for the common cold, yeah ok then,
I lived in Andover and there were stories back in the 1970s that they would pay for you to test cures for the common cold

RizzoTheRat

25,085 posts

191 months

Wednesday 29th June 2016
quotequote all
Just watched it on iplayer, a really interesting and well done done programme I thought. Massive improvement on the complete hatchet job that was done with the series of programmes on DERA (dstl's predecessor) some years back (1999? Can't remember what it was called but edited to really make DERA look bad)

Smiler.

11,752 posts

229 months

Wednesday 29th June 2016
quotequote all
LambShank said:
Anyone watching?

A fascinating, yet ultimately ghoulish place.
Thanks for posting, totally agree.

I wonder where that beach was where the gas shells come from?

I visited the Somme battlefields in July 1987. The iron harvest threw up piles of shells, stacked at the entrances to fields. Many were gas shells of both allies & German origin.

m444ttb

3,160 posts

228 months

Wednesday 29th June 2016
quotequote all
Fascinating. VX gas was something I'd forgotten existed somehow. The film The Rock at least got it right when they said it's one of those things you wish you could uninvent. Perhaps a small mercy they made up the corrosive element of it.

Ginetta G15 Girl

3,220 posts

183 months

Wednesday 29th June 2016
quotequote all
VX isn't a gas, that's the point. It's a thickened (ergo persistent) version of GB (Sarin).

When it hit's you it's like Evo Stik contact adhesive - you'd be scraping it off your noddy suit with a knfe.

Scarey ste.

Stickyfinger

8,429 posts

104 months

Wednesday 29th June 2016
quotequote all
Smiler. said:
LambShank said:
Anyone watching?

A fascinating, yet ultimately ghoulish place.
Thanks for posting, totally agree.

I wonder where that beach was where the gas shells come from?

I visited the Somme battlefields in July 1987. The iron harvest threw up piles of shells, stacked at the entrances to fields. Many were gas shells of both allies & German origin.
And they are now stting themselves about the easy access to them, the system is not changing rapidly