THANK you for featuring the Royal Observation Corps' patient work during the Cold War ("Built to survive a nuclear attack, Cold War bunker opens its doors", The Herald, August 17). It was a time of constant worry, the four-minute warning and laying stocks of water and food, for my generation, in particular for those families with children. The two nuclear armed superpowers faced up to one another in the "stabilising" knowledge of mutually assured destruction.
But today possession of a nuclear capability has spread to many nations in the northern hemisphere, and the know-how and materials to nationless terrorist organisations. Today’s nuclear bombs are many times more destructive.
We would be failing those yet unborn in the Cold War period if we do not educate the upcoming generations. How could they connect a system of shallow bunkers with the personal terror they attempted to allay? So great is the present-day threat of global annihilation that the idea of preparing to monitor radioactive fallout and helping survivors is fanciful.
The Scottish CND’s education group is active in visiting schools and youth groups, and holding youth peaceful protest academies. Our UK Government owes it to the upcoming generation who never experienced those dark days to grab the opportunity to sign and ratify The United Nations Treaty for the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons 2017 which offers the prospect of a world free from nuclear weapons.
Richard Phelps,
10 Kelvin Drive, Glasgow.
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