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Our Story: Series 13: Royal Observer Corps

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Royal Observer Corps

Series 13

BBC Radio Scotland - Our Story, Series 13, Royal Observer Corps

Mark Stephen meets some of the men and women of the Cold War-era Royal Observer Corps.

Mark Stephen meets some of the Scottish Cold War-era Royal Observer Corps volunteers, whose job was to report nuclear bomb blasts and staff their underground bunkers.

If you were born before the 1980s you grew up with the threat of nuclear war, and you perhaps wondered what you were going to do if the famous 'four minute warning' of nuclear attack sounded. Well some people didn’t wonder - they knew. The men and women of the Royal Observer Corps were trained for this very thing - they were the field force of the UK Warning and Monitoring Organisation who were supposed to monitor where nuclear bombs had dropped and to give warnings of fall out. They were volunteers from all walks of life whose ordinary lives and jobs were twinned with a secret life underground, staffing the hundreds of observation post bunkers dotted across the country. They would report back to their group and sector headquarters where scientists would plot bombs and fall-out on on a map and pass warnings to the military, regional government bunkers, emergency services and the civilian population.  Mark Stephen meets the Scottish ROC volunteers who were on the Cold War front line and finds out their story.


Our Story: Series 13

BBC Radio Scotland

Mark Stephen hears stories of Scotland's distinctive past and rich history.

Mark Stephen hears stories of Scotland's distinctive past from those who are part of its rich history.

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