Nuclear fears

Tom Lean, interviewer for Made in Britain writes:

The ongoing crisis at the Fukushima nuclear plant in Japan has reignited the debate about the use of nuclear power.  Following accidents at Chernobyl and Three Mile Island the problems of nuclear energy are well known and widely debated today; but in the 1950s nuclear power was seen in a much more positive light than it is now. In a world that was learning to live in the shadow of the atomic bomb, the harnessing of the destructive power of the atom to provide limitless "energy too cheap to meter" was seen as a futuristic and positive development, but the risks were little known or understood.

In 1957 a fire at a military reactor at Windscale in Cumbria released radioactive contamination into the surrounding area.  Although a full scale disaster was averted, in the aftermath of the fire the dangers of nuclear power came to the attention of an ill-informed wider public.  Made in Britain interviewee Roy Gibson (catalogue no. C1379/19) was recruited to the Atomic Energy Agency shortly after the Windscale Fire. In the following clip, Roy discusses some of his experiences working in the Atomic Energy Agency's health and safety department in the late 1950s.

Roy Gibson on attitudes to radioactivity in the 1950s