Porton Down, BBC4

[LambShank]

Anyone watching?

A fascinating, yet ultimately ghoulish place.

[phil-sti]

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]

Terrifying stuff

[Antony Moxey]

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]

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]

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]

He didnt last long with the cs.

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

[Halmyre]

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]

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]

Going to watch it on catch up. Be rude not to as I live few miles down the road.

[Alias218]

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]

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]

back on tonight - 10pm.

put it on sky+ planner. looks interesting.

[Charlie Michael]

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.

[gareth h]

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]

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.]

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]

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]

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]

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