My dad tells the story often, because a friend of his was a Concorde pilot. In the cockpit was a cosmic radiation monitor. On one occasion it went suddenly off the top of the scale en route between Heathrow and New York – I forget which direction but it’s not important.

His friend – we’ll call him Dave, because I can’t remember his name – quickly deduced that the Atomic Weapons Establishment (AWE) at Aldermaston was the likely source and radio-ed ground control, or whatever they call it, to tell them. When they called Aldermaston’s control room to ask about their radiation leak, the AWE staff had no idea what they were talking about.

Shortly afterwards, the AWE folk called back to thank them for the tip off. Yes, they did have a leak and hadn’t noticed. Who knows how long it had been seeping out. Who knows how much longer it might have seeped on had Concorde not flown over? Who is going to let them know their weapons factory is leaking radiation into a residential area now?

So while most of me couldn’t give a (sub-sonic) flying monkey’s arse for the grounding of Concorde, at the same time this worry tugs at me for the people of Tadley, Berkshire, southern England and beyond.

But out of the conundrum comes, with crystal clarity, a solution glowing with knockon benefits. Shut down AWE Aldermaston’s research and development facilities. Maintain it solely as a decommissioning base for all the nuclear weaponry we’ve created. Decommissioning will create shed-loads of jobs for a very long time and also bring us into compliance with our Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) obligations. Marvellous.

Of course, what’s actually happening is the development of a new facility to develop smaller “theatre” nukes at enormous cost to the education and health and public transport systems, not to mention public health and the environment, at huge profit to the consortium running AWE and in spite of the requirements of the NPT that we signed up to.

Decommission the government. I think it’s the only solution.

See www.aldermastonwpc.gn.apc.org for more on AWE and the new generation mini nukes

Also check out:

www.faslanepeacecamp.org.uk – peace camp at the base of Britain’s nuclear submarines and Trident missiles

www.freefylingdalesnetwork.co.uk – against the use of Fylingdales, N. Yorks, as part of US “Son of Star Wars” programme

Lakenheath Action Group – www.lakenheathaction.org – action against stationing of US nukes at RAF Lakenheath.

Gloucestershire Weapons Inspectors – www.cynatech.co.uk – attempting to free Gloucestershire of weapons of mass destruction.

Trident Ploughshares – www.tridentploughshares.org – open and accountable direct disarmament of nuclear stuff.

Low Level Radiation Campaign – www.llrc.org

Stop Hinkley Campaign – see Low Level Radiation Campaign

Communities Against Toxics – www.communities-against-toxics.org.uk – not specifically nuclear toxins.

www.vanunu.freeserve.co.uk – campaign for a nuclear-free Middle East and to free Mordechai Vanunu, jailed for tellng the truth about Israeli nuclear weapons

Youth and Student CND (Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament) – www.nonukes.org.uk

CND – www.cnduk.org