Many thanks RSS

It would seem that Whaley would have been a good place to sit out the war from a non conscripts point of view. No chance of German lessons in local schools- up to Windgather to view the Manchester and Liverpool bombings-Not within JU87B range and plenty of fresh local chinley lamb.

The RAF thought Derbyshire safe enough to house their main ordnance dumps in Buxton Quarries and a "secret" aviation fuel dump in Dove Holes.

No wonder we can find no evidence of  local fortifications, which were for obvious reasons concentrated in the SE and E of the country.

  No one in town seems to remember a local home guard or ARP warden or a siren on top of the Mechanics or yards of black fabric being sold by the co-op for blackout curtains or American jeeps turning up with yanks throwing gum and nylons out to girls (who made their frocks out of parachute silk from shot down german fighter pilots or those that ran out of fuel over Disley) that worked at the bleach works and were invited  to dances at the Jodrell on a Saturday night and doing the jitterbug.

Perhaps someone of a certain age could give us a realistic appraisal.

In the late 70's, early 80's I also thought Whaley not a bad place to escape but view (from Windgather or the Highwayman) the threatened cold war apocalypse ( before the Russians owned half of London, bought Chelsea FC and we all became tovarisch)

Cheers

PS-has anyone read 'Hitler,my part in his downfall' by Spike.

Edited by user 22 January 2011 21:14:46(UTC)  | Reason: Not specified

Today, whilst visiting the flea market at Leek I per chanced upon a book entitled "Staffordshire the war years" in it was advice about how to entrap a German tank ( should one make it this far north)-which I hasten to add was compared to an elephant (stop the first one and the others will be in disarray )- must have been written by an officer with experience of tiger shooting in India.

V1's were of course the "doodlebug" which had a limited range, although some were air launched and were alleged (by at least one resident I have spoken to)  to have reached Buxton - one definatley reached Oldham.  Hear one here.

http://www.flyingbombsandrockets.com/V1_into.html

V2's were the more sinister liquid Oxygen fuelled rocket that led to it's inventors being given US citizenship in some dodgy deal which lead to the USA getting one up on Yuri Gagarin (who unfortunatley died, like Gary Powers , the U2 pilot, who just happened to run out of fuel)

It was then detailed how to construct this trap.  This reminds me of how we were all given home office advice on TV in 1979 to remove a door from it's hinges and place it on a table top to ensure the safety of our families cowering underneath whilst Tupolov bombers unleashed their deadly cargo's over the Hacienda night club in Manchester where Joy division where performing.  A little later the USSR would invade Afghanistan and we would learn that they didn't have even the resources to do that or feed their own people let alone take over the Western world.

Little has changed , we are still sending young people to foreign lands for dubious political reasons.  And we will end up drinking mint tea, smoking the pipe and eating the sheeps eye in their tents.

That's quite enough cynicism for one night

Cheers

Maybe a new thread is needed "Whaley the cold war years" where are the "Rotor" stations that monitored USSR  bombers probing our airspace--truth is they were all in the East of the UK for the same reasons.

._  ._.

Edited by user 23 January 2011 08:56:41(UTC)  | Reason: Not specified

The "nuclear bunker" on the top of Eccles Pike is only a small hole, used by the Royal Observation Corps. in case of any emergency. They are, or used to be, tested at least once a year. There were thousands of them all over the country, and were used with local police, fire and hospital  departments presumably to take over if the telephone system crashed. I was on the Pike one day years ago when a man from the Post Office ( or telephones) was testing it. I presume they are obsolete now.

Edited by user 23 January 2011 13:49:42(UTC)  | Reason: Not specified

I spent much of my youth being taken on tours of british resistance hideouts and later "secret underground bunkers" from where Soviet bomber incursions where monitored.

I then spent time as a slightly older youth learning how to survive the apocolypse.  G Jackson obviously has some knowledge of this when he refers to a protractor.

We were ordered in the event of a nuclear strike to :

Count the flash to bang time-this would allow those privilaged enough to be  entrenched in 30 feet of concrete to estimate the distance ( assuming the field telephones would work in the mother of all electromagnetic fields)

We were then to keep our heads down whilst the atomic wind passed over our heads.----but dont pop your head up now because the wind would return as all of humanity would be sucked back into the epicentre and take your head off.

Now is the time to pop your head up and observe the mushroom cloud-simply remain calm and use your prismatic compass to take a bearing on the mushroom and report back to HQ.

Then have your personal dosimeter read , only they wont tell you if your going to die cause it's bad for morale

Cheers

Edited by user 28 January 2011 22:49:01(UTC)  | Reason: Not specified

Actually GJ and I fear you are trying to take my crown as cynicas maximus,  I hadn't forgot that excellent and most appropriate advice -I just thought it inappropriate to mention it  in the history section (even after the watershed). :)    And even when my ageing frame was more supple would have found it most difficult to follow the procedure not mentioned in the HMG guide book on post apocalyptic survival.

I can confirm after information received today that the "secret"aviation fuel dump in Dove Holes was where Horseshoe Avenue is today and that there is also a pipe line branch that fed into probably the ring main that is accessed at Woodford and  is still  in use today but now carrying petrol at nearly six quid a gallon.

Cheers

Edited by user 28 January 2011 23:16:12(UTC)  | Reason: Not specified

Its all on the net pipeline\bunkers even Furness Vale.

http://www.secret-bases.co.uk/     go to part 3 and click on show all.

Edited by user 16 May 2011 17:15:13(UTC)  | Reason: Not specified