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during a national emergency under the BBC Charter and the Broadcasting Act 1980.
The national siren system was largely dismantled during the 1990s. The British Government cited the increasing use of double-glazed windows (which make sirens harder to hear) and the reduced likelihood of air attack as reasons to eliminate the system in most parts of the country. Some coastal and river areas have retained and regularly test the sirens as part of the flood warning defences. Since 1952,
The four-minute warning was a public alert system conceived by the British Government during the Cold War and operated between 1953 and 1992. The name derived from the approximate length of time from the point at which a
It was the responsibility of the United Kingdom Warning and Monitoring Organisation (UKWMO) at the United Kingdom Regional Air Operations Centre (UK RAOC) located at
Broadcasting House in London). Simultaneously the national Soviet
The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, it was nominally a federal union of fifteen nation ...
nuclear missile
Nuclear weapons delivery is the technology and systems used to place a nuclear weapon at the position of detonation, on or near its target. Several methods have been developed to carry out this task.
''Strategic'' nuclear weapons are used primari ...
attack against the United Kingdom could be confirmed and the impact of those missiles on their targets. The population was to be notified by means of air raid sirens
A civil defense siren, also known as an air-raid siren or tornado siren, is a siren used to provide an emergency population warning to the general population of approaching danger. It is sometimes sounded again to indicate the danger has pas ...
, television
Television, sometimes shortened to TV, is a telecommunication medium for transmitting moving images and sound. The term can refer to a television set, or the medium of television transmission. Television is a mass medium for advertisin ...
and radio
Radio is the technology of signaling and communicating using radio waves. Radio waves are electromagnetic waves of frequency between 30 hertz (Hz) and 300 gigahertz (GHz). They are generated by an electronic device called a transmi ...
, and urged to seek cover immediately. In practice, the warning would have been more likely three minutes or less.
The warning system
Basic details
The warning would be initiated by the detection of inboundmissile
In military terminology, a missile is a guided airborne ranged weapon capable of self-propelled flight usually by a jet engine or rocket motor. Missiles are thus also called guided missiles or guided rockets (when a previously unguided rocke ...
s and aircraft targeted at the United Kingdom. Early in the Cold War, Jodrell Bank
Jodrell Bank Observatory () in Cheshire, England, hosts a number of radio telescopes as part of the Jodrell Bank Centre for Astrophysics at the University of Manchester. The observatory was established in 1945 by Bernard Lovell, a radio astro ...
was used to detect and track incoming missiles, while continuing to be used for astronomical research.
Throughout the Cold War, there was a conflict between the Royal Air Force
The Royal Air Force (RAF) is the United Kingdom's air and space force. It was formed towards the end of the First World War on 1 April 1918, becoming the first independent air force in the world, by regrouping the Royal Flying Corps (RFC) an ...
and the Home Office about who was in charge of the warning system. This was not for any practical or technical reason, but more to do with who would be blamed if a false alarm were given or if an attack occurred without warning. By the 1980s, the warning was to be given on the orders of a Warning Officer from the Home Office's Warning and Monitoring Organisation stationed at RAF Booker
Royal Air Force Booker or more simply RAF Booker is a former Royal Air Force installation located south west of High Wycombe, Buckinghamshire and north east of Henley-on-Thames, Oxfordshire, England.
Booker was opened as a flying training ...
near High Wycombe
High Wycombe, often referred to as Wycombe ( ), is a market town in Buckinghamshire, England. Lying in the valley of the River Wye, Buckinghamshire, River Wye surrounded by the Chiltern Hills, it is west-northwest of Charing Cross in London, ...
.
From the early 1960s, initial detection of attack would be provided primarily by the RAF
The Royal Air Force (RAF) is the United Kingdom's air and space force. It was formed towards the end of the First World War on 1 April 1918, becoming the first independent air force in the world, by regrouping the Royal Flying Corps (RFC) and ...
BMEWS station at Fylingdales
Fylingdales is a civil parish in the Scarborough district of North Yorkshire, England situated south of Whitby, within the North York Moors National Park. It contains the villages of Robin Hood's Bay and Fylingthorpe and Fyling Hall School.
...
in North Yorkshire
North Yorkshire is the largest ceremonial counties of England, ceremonial county (lieutenancy area) in England, covering an area of . Around 40% of the county is covered by National parks of the United Kingdom, national parks, including most of ...
. There, powerful radar
Radar is a detection system that uses radio waves to determine the distance ('' ranging''), angle, and radial velocity of objects relative to the site. It can be used to detect aircraft, ships, spacecraft, guided missiles, motor vehicles, we ...
s would track the inbound missiles and allow confirmation of targets. In later years the first indication of any imminent attack would be expected to come from infrared
Infrared (IR), sometimes called infrared light, is electromagnetic radiation (EMR) with wavelengths longer than those of visible light. It is therefore invisible to the human eye. IR is generally understood to encompass wavelengths from around ...
detectors aboard the United States Defense Support Program
The Defense Support Program (DSP) is a program of the United States Space Force that operated the reconnaissance satellites which form the principal component of the ''Satellite Early Warning System'' used by the United States.
DSP satellite ...
(DSP) satellites. BMEWS would still play an important role in tracking and confirming the destination of any launches.
The British government was not the main beneficiary of BMEWS, given that it would only receive what Solly Zuckerman
Solomon "Solly" Zuckerman, Baron Zuckerman (30 May 1904 – 1 April 1993) was a British public servant, zoologist and operational research pioneer. He is best remembered as a scientific advisor to the Allies on bombing strategy in the Second Wo ...
described in 1960 as "no more than 5 minutes warning time" of an attack. The United States was the United Kingdom's most important military and technological partner, and its US-based Strategic Air Command would have thirty minutes warning from the Fylingdales station, whilst the RAF's own V bomber force would have about ten minutes.
UKWMO and the ROC
It was the responsibility of the United Kingdom Warning and Monitoring Organisation (UKWMO) at the United Kingdom Regional Air Operations Centre (UK RAOC) located at RAF Booker
Royal Air Force Booker or more simply RAF Booker is a former Royal Air Force installation located south west of High Wycombe, Buckinghamshire and north east of Henley-on-Thames, Oxfordshire, England.
Booker was opened as a flying training ...
to alert the nation to an imminent air attack. Once an alert was initiated the national and local television
Television, sometimes shortened to TV, is a telecommunication medium for transmitting moving images and sound. The term can refer to a television set, or the medium of television transmission. Television is a mass medium for advertisin ...
and radio
Radio is the technology of signaling and communicating using radio waves. Radio waves are electromagnetic waves of frequency between 30 hertz (Hz) and 300 gigahertz (GHz). They are generated by an electronic device called a transmi ...
networks would break into transmissions and broadcast a warning (the warning message would originate from an emergency studio in BBC #REDIRECT BBC #REDIRECT BBC
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...air raid siren
A civil defense siren, also known as an air-raid siren or tornado siren, is a siren used to provide an emergency population warning to the general population of approaching danger. It is sometimes sounded again to indicate the danger has pa ...
system would be brought into service. A system, which used the same frequency on normal telephone lines as the peacetime speaking clock
A speaking clock or talking clock is a live or recorded human voice service, usually accessed by telephone, that gives the correct time. The first telephone speaking clock service was introduced in France, in association with the Paris Observ ...
, was employed for this whereby a key switch activation alerted 250 national Carrier Control Points or CCPs present in police station
A police station (sometimes called a "station house" or just "house") is a building which serves to accommodate police officers and other members of staff. These buildings often contain offices and accommodation for personnel and vehicles, ...
s across the country. In turn the CCPs would, via a signal carried along ordinary phone lines, cause 7,000 powered sirens to start up. In rural areas, around 11,000 hand powered sirens would be operated by postmasters, rural police officers, or Royal Observer Corps personnel (even parish priests, publicans, magistrates, subpostmasters or private citizens could be involved in some remote rural areas).
Linked into the system were the twenty-five Royal Observer Corps (ROC) group controls, also with direct links to the carrier control points. In the event of subsequent radioactive fallout, local fallout warnings could be generated from the group controls on a very localised basis over the same carrier wave system.
The national warning system saw many changes over the years. During the 1960s and 1970s, much of the local authority civil defence
Civil defense ( en, region=gb, civil defence) or civil protection is an effort to protect the citizens of a state (generally non-combatants) from man-made and natural disasters. It uses the principles of emergency operations: prevention, mit ...
planning in the United Kingdom became outdated, although the WB400/WB600 warning system was maintained and kept serviceable along with updating of ROC instrumentation and communications. The system's main problem was that many of the telephone lines it needed had to be manually switched in times of pre-war tension by Post Office telephone engineers. The links were not hardened against the effects of EMP. In the late 1970s and early 1980s heightened fears and tensions led to a resumption of contingency planning and the upgrading of many systems. The outdated WB400/WB600 systems were replaced with brand new WB1400 equipment, communications links were made permanent and hardened against EMP disruption.
Sirens
The national siren system originating fromWorld War II
World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposing ...
had a secondary role of "general warning", particularly for imminent flooding. Following the end of the Cold War, a telephone-based system was thought to be more appropriate for national warnings and less expensive to maintain. Additionally the Government retains an ability to break into television and radio broadcasts for the purpose of alerting the general public and has legal power to take over editorial control of the BBC #REDIRECT BBC #REDIRECT BBC
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...Broadmoor Hospital
Broadmoor Hospital is a high-security psychiatric hospital in Crowthorne, Berkshire, England. It is the oldest of the three high-security psychiatric hospitals in England, the other two being Ashworth Hospital near Liverpool and Rampton Secure ...
has employed a network of 14 sirens to warn of escaped patients; this is tested every Monday at 10 am. The hospital sirens were scheduled for removal during 2018 except for one located in the hospital grounds. Carstairs Hospital also retains its sirens, which are tested monthly. In some towns, sirens were once used to summon part-time firemen until the introduction of radio pagers during the 1970s – these 'stand alone' sirens operated independently of the warning network.
Torness nuclear power station in East Lothian Scotland uses two of these sirens as a warning of an off site nuclear emergency, tested every Tuesday morning at 10 am.
Sample script
The following is a script that would have been broadcast in the aftermath of an attack, available from the BBC. It was recorded byPeter Donaldson
Peter Ian Donaldson (23 August 1945 – 2 November 2015) was an English newsreader on BBC Radio 4.
Early life
Donaldson was born in Cairo, Egypt, and moved to Cyprus in 1952 at the time of the overthrow of King Farouk. He was a frequen ...
, chief continuity announcer for BBC Radio 4
BBC Radio 4 is a British national radio station owned and operated by the BBC that replaced the BBC Home Service in 1967. It broadcasts a wide variety of spoken-word programmes, including news, drama, comedy, science and history from the BBC' ...
:
Cultural impact
The Cold War and the fear of nuclear attack permeated pop culture up until the 1990s. Examples include the song "Four Minute Warning" by the British punk bandChaos UK
Chaos UK is an English punk rock band formed in 1979 in Portishead, near Bristol. They emerged as part of the anarcho-punk scene, developing a fast and aggressive hardcore punk style. The band recorded two EPs and a full LP for Riot City Rec ...
(EP "Burning Britain", 1982), the poem "Your Attention Please" by Peter Porter, a solo song
A song is a musical composition intended to be performed by the human voice. This is often done at distinct and fixed pitches (melodies) using patterns of sound and silence. Songs contain various forms, such as those including the repetit ...
by Take That
Take That are an English pop group formed in Manchester in 1990. The group currently consists of Gary Barlow, Howard Donald and Mark Owen. The original line-up also featured Jason Orange and Robbie Williams. Barlow is the group's lead singer ...
singer, Mark Owen
Mark Owen (born 27 January 1972) is an English singer and songwriter best known for being a member of pop group and band Take That; as of 2019, the group have sold 14 million albums and 11.4 million singles in the UK. In Owen's solo career, he ...
, and "Four Minutes" by Roger Waters (of Pink Floyd fame) on his 1987 solo album '' Radio K.A.O.S.''. John Paul Jones
John Paul Jones (born John Paul; July 6, 1747 July 18, 1792) was a Scottish-American naval captain who was the United States' first well-known naval commander in the American Revolutionary War. He made many friends among U.S political elites ( ...
has a song entitled "4-Minute Warning" on the 1988 Brian Eno album ''Music for Films III
''Music for Films III'' is the third entry in Brian Eno's "Music for Films" series. Unlike entries in the past, this record features tracks credited to Brian Eno, Roger Eno, Michael Brook, and Harold Budd among others, with Brian Eno involved ...
''. The first single of the UK rap crew Gunshot
A gunshot is a single discharge of a gun, typically a man-portable firearm, producing a visible flash, a powerful and loud shockwave and often chemical gunshot residue. The term can also refer to a ballistic wound caused by such a discharg ...
, from 1990, was entitled "Battle Creek Brawl (4 Minute Warning)". A Radiohead track from the 2007 Bonus Disc album ''In Rainbows'' Disk 2 is titled "4 Minute Warning".
The four-minute warning was a central plot and narrative device in dramas (both on stage and screen) and novels, often being the motor force of plays, films, novels and cartoon strips. The BBC drama '' Threads'', about how society decays after a nuclear holocaust
A nuclear holocaust, also known as a nuclear apocalypse, nuclear Armageddon, or atomic holocaust, is a theoretical scenario where the mass detonation of nuclear weapons causes globally widespread destruction and radioactive fallout. Such a scenar ...
, focuses on an attack on Sheffield
Sheffield is a city in South Yorkshire, England, whose name derives from the River Sheaf which runs through it. The city serves as the administrative centre of the City of Sheffield. It is historically part of the West Riding of Yorkshire a ...
. ''The War Game
''The War Game'' is a 1966 British pseudo-documentary film that depicts a nuclear war and its aftermath. Written, directed and produced by Peter Watkins for the BBC, it caused dismay within the BBC and also within government, and was subseque ...
'' also portrays the four-minute warning, pointing out the warning period could be even less. The narrator, Michael Aspel
Michael Terence Aspel (born 12 January 1933) is an English retired television newsreader and host of programmes such as '' Crackerjack'', ''Aspel & Company'', '' Give Us a Clue'', ''This is Your Life'', '' Strange but True?'' and ''Antiques Ro ...
, says it could even be two minutes between issuing the warning and impact on a target. The film adaptation of Raymond Briggs
Raymond Redvers Briggs (18 January 1934 – 9 August 2022) was an English illustrator, cartoonist, graphic novelist and author. Achieving critical and popular success among adults and children, he is best known in Britain for his 1978 story ...
's satirical and blackly comic cartoon strip
A comic strip is a sequence of drawings, often cartoons, arranged in interrelated panels to display brief humor or form a narrative, often serialized, with text in balloons and captions. Traditionally, throughout the 20th and into the 21st c ...
, '' When the Wind Blows'', has the warning message as part of the script, which triggers arguing between Jim and Hilda Bloggs. Although this is not Peter Donaldson
Peter Ian Donaldson (23 August 1945 – 2 November 2015) was an English newsreader on BBC Radio 4.
Early life
Donaldson was born in Cairo, Egypt, and moved to Cyprus in 1952 at the time of the overthrow of King Farouk. He was a frequen ...
's pre-recorded warning (which was not available on grounds of national security and for copyright reasons), this was a fictional announcement written on grounds of artistic licence
Artistic license (alongside more contextually-specific derivative terms such as poetic license, historical license, dramatic license, and narrative license) refers to deviation from fact or form for artistic purposes. It can include the alterat ...
. It was read by Robin Houston
Robin Houston (born London, 1947) is a British voiceover artist and former announcer, radio and television newsreader and quiz show host. After starting his career as an announcer and stage manager, he became one of the pioneers of commercial ra ...
, a voiceover artist who was known in London as a newsreader for Thames Television
Thames Television, commonly simplified to just Thames, was a franchise holder for a region of the British ITV television network serving London and surrounding areas from 30 July 1968 until the night of 31 December 1992.
Thames Television broa ...
(who played the role of newsreader in the film).
The adult humour comic '' Viz'' ran a photo strip in its issue 107 called "Four Minutes to Fall in Love", where a boyfriend and girlfriend cram a whole relationship into the four minutes before a nuclear attack. The four-minute warning had become the inspiration for many jokes and sketches in comedy programmes in Britain, in the same way that the Emergency Broadcast System
The Emergency Broadcast System (EBS), sometimes called the Emergency Broadcasting System or the Emergency Action Notification System (EANS), was an emergency warning system used in the United States. It replaced the previous CONELRAD system an ...
had in the United States (see nuclear weapons in popular culture
Since their public debut in August 1945, nuclear weapons and their potential effects have been a recurring motif in popular culture, to the extent that the decades of the Cold War are often referred to as the "atomic age".
Images of nuclear w ...
). In one episode of ''Only Fools and Horses
''Only Fools and Horses....'' is a British television sitcom created and written by John Sullivan (writer), John Sullivan. Seven series were originally broadcast on BBC One in the United Kingdom from 1981 to 1991, with sixteen sporadic Christmas ...
'', " The Russians Are Coming," Delboy and Rodney Trotter
Rodney Charlton Trotter (also known as Dave by Trigger), is a fictional character in the long running BBC sitcom ''Only Fools and Horses'', played by Nicholas Lyndhurst.
Biography
Rodney is the son of Joan Mavis Trotter, grandson of Edward Tr ...
sell fallout shelter
A fallout shelter is an enclosed space specially designated to protect occupants from radioactive debris or fallout resulting from a nuclear explosion. Many such shelters were constructed as civil defense measures during the Cold War.
During ...
kits and have an attack drill. Driving towards their shelter, they are stopped by the police for speeding and asked: "You just heard the four-minute warning?" After being sent on their way, Rodney points out: "We died forty-five seconds ago." Around the same time, a sketch on the BBC Scotland programme ''Naked Video
''Naked Video'' is a BBC Scotland sketch show that was aired on BBC2 from 12 May 1986 to 18 November 1991. The show was created by Colin Gilbert who had previously created '' A Kick Up the Eighties'' and ''Naked Radio'' (the latter being a radi ...
'' had a mock announcement warning of an attack with a punchline
A punch line (a. k. a. punch-line or punchline) concludes a joke; it is intended to make people laugh. It is the third and final part of the typical joke structure. It follows the introductory framing of the joke and the narrative which sets up ...
of "... except for viewers in Scotland."
See also
* Civil Defence Information Bulletin, a precursor to ''Protect and Survive'' *Emergency Broadcast System
The Emergency Broadcast System (EBS), sometimes called the Emergency Broadcasting System or the Emergency Action Notification System (EANS), was an emergency warning system used in the United States. It replaced the previous CONELRAD system an ...
*Emergency Alert System
The Emergency Alert System (EAS) is a national warning system in the United States designed to allow authorized officials to broadcast emergency alerts and warning messages to the public via cable, satellite, or broadcast television, and bot ...
*CONELRAD
CONELRAD (''Control of Electromagnetic Radiation'') was a method of emergency broadcasting to the public of the United States in the event of enemy attack during the Cold War. It was intended to allow continuous broadcast of civil defense informa ...
* HANDEL
* Mobile phone alerts in the United Kingdom
*''Protect and Survive
''Protect and Survive'' was a public information campaign on civil defence. Produced by the British government between 1974 and 1980, it intended to advise the public on how to protect themselves during a nuclear attack. The campaign compris ...
''
* Transition to war
*Wartime Broadcasting Service
The Wartime Broadcasting Service is a service of the BBC that is intended to broadcast in the United Kingdom either after a nuclear attack or if conventional bombing destroyed regular BBC facilities in a conventional war. It is unclear if the ...
, a broadcasting service run by the BBC that would operate after a nuclear attack or if conventional bombing had destroyed conventional broadcasting systems.
References
External links
UKWMO Communications chain – message dissemination
*Nuclear secrets of 1975 revealed
(Link)
BBC News, 29 December 2005. *
Peter Donaldson
Peter Ian Donaldson (23 August 1945 – 2 November 2015) was an English newsreader on BBC Radio 4.
Early life
Donaldson was born in Cairo, Egypt, and moved to Cyprus in 1952 at the time of the overthrow of King Farouk. He was a frequen ...
's 1970s recorded warning messag(Real Audio)
The details around Peter Donaldson's warning message
{{DEFAULTSORT:Four-Minute Warning Nuclear warfare Emergency management in the United Kingdom Cold War history of the United Kingdom Royal Observer Corps Emergency population warning systems