Notabilia: Le inquietudini nucleari d’Oltremanica (1979-1981)

di Jacopo Bassi
timeline ideata e realizzata da Serena BELTRAME nell’ambito dell’insegnamento Storia digitale tenuto da Deborah Paci presso Ca’ Foscari Università Venezia

Ascolta la registrazione di questa puntata, andata in onda su Radio Ca’ Foscari il 25 febbraio 2016.

“Sellafield” by Ludo on Flickr (CC BY 2.0)

The Clash, London Calling, in London Calling, 1979
testo di Joe Strummer – Mick Jones

London calling
To the far away towns
Now war is declared
And battle come down

London calling
To the underworld
Come out of the cupboard
You boys and girls

London calling
Now don’t look to us
Phony Beatlemania
Has bitten the dust

London calling
See we ain’t got no swing
Except for the ring
Of that truncheon thing

The ice age is coming
The sun’s zooming in
Meltdown expected
And the wheat is growing thin

Engines stop running
But I have no fear
’Cause London is drowning and I
Live by the river

London calling
To the imitation zone
Forget it brother
You can go it alone

London calling
To the zombies of death
Quit holding out
And draw another breath

London calling
And I don’t wanna shout
But while we were talking
I saw you nodding out

London calling
See we ain’t got no highs
Except for that one
With the yellowy eyes

The ice age is coming
The sun’s zooming in
Engines stop running
And the wheat is growing thin

A nuclear error
But I have no fear
’Cause London is drowning and I
Live by the river

The ice age is coming
The sun’s zooming in
Engines stop running
And the wheat is growing thin

A nuclear error
But I have no fear
’Cause London is drowning and I
Live by the river

Now get this…

London calling
Yeah I was there too
And you know what they said?
Well some of it was true

London calling
At the top of the dial
And after all this
Won’t you give me a smile?

London calling

I never felt so much a-like…

Jethro Tull, Protect and Survive, in A, 1980
testo di Ian Anderson

They said protect and you’ll survive
(but our postman didn’t call)
8lbs. of over-pressure wave seemed to glue him to the wall
They said protect and you’ll survive

E.M.P. took out the radio
(and our milk-man didn’t call)
Flash blinded by the pretty lights,
didn’t see his bottles fall
or feel the warm black rain arrive

Big friendly cloud builds in the West
(and our dust-men haven’t called)
They left the dual carriageway at a hundred miles an hour
a tail wind chasing them away

And in deep shelters lurk below, sub-regional control
who sympathise but cannot help
to mend your body or your soul
Self-appointed guadians of the race with egg upon their face
When steady sirens sing all-clear they pop up,
find nobody here

And so I watch two new suns spin
(our paper man doesn’t call)
Burnt shadow printed on the road
now there’s nothing there at all
They said protect and you’ll survive

Bibliografia essenziale

Bibliografia

BENN, Tony, Conflicts of interests: diaries, 1977-80, London, Arrow, 1991.
BENN, Tony, The end of an era: diaries, 1980-90, London, Arrow, 1994.
BERTINETTI, Roberto, Dai Beatles a Blair: la cultura inglese contemporanea, Roma, Carocci, 2001.
CLARKE, Peter, Speranza e gloria. L’Inghilterra nel XX secolo, Bologna, Il Mulino, 2008.
DALQUIST, Stephanie, Timeline. A Chronology of Public Opinion on Nuclear Power in the United States and United Kingdom, 29 aprile 2004, URL: < web.mit.edu/skd/www/dalquist-nuclear-opinion.pdf >.
GREENHALGH, Geoffrey, «After Parker: A Review of the Windscale Inquiry and Subsequent Developments», in IAEA Bulletin, 20, 6/1978, pp. 2-8.
PATTERSON, Walter C., «The Windscale Report: a nuclear apologia», in Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, 34, 6/1978, pp. 44-49.
PEARSON, Peter, WATSON, Jim, UK Energy Policy 1980-2010. A History and Lessons to be learnt, London, The Parliamentary Group for Energy Studies, 2012.

Sitografia

Margaret Thatcher Foundation, URL: < http://www.margaretthatcher.org/ >.
Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament, URL: < http://www.cnduk.org/ >.
Protect and Survive website, URL : < http://www.atomica.co.uk/ >.
Greenham Common Women’s Peace Camp, URL: < http://www.greenhamwpc.org.uk/ >.
BBC – Letter from America by Alistair Cooke, Three Mile Island Accident, 6 April 1979, URL: < http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/articles/4Qf8mWdJLtvJMr5rpXdzp1t/three-mile-island-accident-6-april-1979 >.
Women and Life on Earth, URL: < http://www.wloe.org/ >.

Timeline: La vita e la carriera di Margaret Thatcher

a cura di Serena BELTRAME

Video

	Operation Smash Hit Cortometraggio che illustra le fasi di realizzazione dell’operazione Smash Hit (1984) da parte della Central Electricity Generating Board.
	Both Sides of the Fence Film documentario (1994) sulla base di Greenham Common e le proteste antimilitariste.
	CND Peace March Servizio giornalistico sulla marcia indetta dalla CND a Londra (1980). La pellicola (in tedesco) proviene dagli Huntley Film Archives .
	CND Demonstration (26 Oct 1980) Filmato della manifestazione della CND del 26 ottobre 1980 a Trafalgar Square (Londra), girato con una videocamera Super8.

Galleria di immagini

1. Vagoni ferroviari adibiti al trasporto dei container – gli stessi impiegati nell’Operation Smash Hit – riservati alle scorie nucleari. Il binario su cui si trovano è quello della stazione di Sellafield (il paese della centrale di Windscale).	2. La centrale nucleare di Sellafield in una foto del 1985.	3. Il manifesto originale del film The China Syndrome, uscito nel 1979.
4. Manifesto pubblicitario del concerto di chiusura della marcia di protesta della CND, tenutasi il 26 ottobre 1980.	5. Copertina dell’opuscolo di informazione del governo britannico Protect and Survive, pubblicato nel 1980.	6. Le prime pagine dell’opuscolo.

7. L’indice dell’opuscolo.

8. Istruzioni per la creazione della
Fall-out room all’interno di un’abitazione.

Credits

Copertina: by Ludo on Flickr (CC BY-SA 2.0).
Immagine 1: by Nigel Chadwick via Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 2.0).
Immagine 2: by Chris Eaton via Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 2.0).
Immagine 3: via Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 2.0).
Immagine 5: via Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 2.0).
Immagine 6: by Nathan Chantrell on Flickr (CC BY-NC-ND 2.0).
Immagine 7: by Nathan Chantrell on Flickr (CC BY-NC-ND 2.0).
Immagine 8: by Nathan Chantrell on Flickr (CC BY-NC-ND 2.0).

« Torna all’indice delle puntate