Cold War. Places In The Lifeboat

[sandyRoe]

The offer for sale of a redundant cold war nuclear bunker here in NI prompted the question, Who'd have been offered a place there?
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-northern-ireland-35469639

[bhg481]

Well I certainly wouldn't have wanted a place in there. After the incident you emerge to a world with no communications, power, transport, medical supplies, fresh food or water (only a limited supply of tinned food and bottled water). Any survivers would have gone feral with mass fighting for the limited food etc available. Not a place I would want to live.

[mikey4444]

As a certain Rev. Paisley would have been included in the guest list, I would much have preferred to take my chances on the outside ! The thought of listening to him bellowing away is just too awful.

[bhg481]

The people who would have been offered places would have been the "important" people who are good at organising others. The problem is that there would have been nobody to organise when they emerged. It's fine saying "right, it's over, I'll organise the power to be re-connected" but there would be no engineers left to do it. Back to being cavemen.

[ichkeria]

When we were growing up we had an EWD (Early warning device) in our house for notifying the population when the nuclear balloon was about to go up.

They probably had two lists: for for people to send there in a real emergency and one for people to send there in a pretend emergency :-)

[sandyRoe]

If peeing Aisley had a place then, for balance , so should the catholic primate of Ireland. The world would have been devastated and yet the stage would have been set for the same old bigoted rivalry.

[bhg481]

No, not necessarily Sandy. Ian Paisley would have been included because, when the crisis was over, he could go outside and shout "All clear", which would get over the lack of conventional communications. The whole of Ireland could be informed by just one person.

[sandyRoe]

Churchill had it when he said:
The whole map of Europe has been changed ... but as the deluge subsides and the waters fall short we see the dreary steeples of Fermanagh and Tyrone emerging once again."

[ichkeria]

I always thought he had a bit of a cheek saying that ...

[ichkeria]

...I mean, tell the people of Latvia, Lithuania, Estonia, the ethnically cleansed people of Konigsberg, the German POWs in Soviet Labour Camps, the radiation-burned people of Hiroshima etc etc
I bet they'd have given anything for a few dreary steeples around Dromore and Ballinamallard ...

[sandyRoe]

Was he talking at the time the border between north and south was being argued over?

[ichkeria]

I assumed he just meant that other wars may come and go but Ireland, N Ireland in particular, goes on forever unresolved.
Or maybe he was just being unkind about a part of the world that is not the worst for beauty, even if steeples are not your thing :-)
I think the border was sorted by then, just not everyone agreed with there being one

[Hopkirk]

Not only would there be disagreement about who went in, they would probably have argued about when to shut the doors.

[bhg481]

Quite right Hoppy, they'd have to have a committee meeting to decide whose job it was and then find that nobody knew how to do it.