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Cold War Conversations - "vivid & compelling" The NY Times

Observing Cold War Armageddon (11)

Cold War Conversations - "vivid & compelling" The NY Times

Ian Sanders

History, Documentary, Society & Culture

4.8865 Ratings

🗓️ 26 May 2018

⏱️ 63 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Today we’re covering a British Cold War civil defence unit called the Royal Observer Corps. We’re talking to Alistair McCann who has preserved a Royal Observer Corps monitoring post as a museum in Northern Ireland. We talk about the museum, the difficulties of the Northern Ireland Royal Observer Corps during “The Troubles” and what the reality would have been for these men and women should the Cold War have turned hot.  I hope you find our conversation as interesting as I did. We welcome Alistair McCann. Support the project! https://coldwarconversations.com/donate/ Follow us on Twitter https://twitter.com/ColdWarPod Facebook https://www.facebook.com/groups/coldwarpod/ Instagram https://www.instagram.com/coldwarconversations/ Youtube https://youtube.com/@ColdWarConversations Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0

Welcome to Cold War Conversations, the home of real stories of the Cold War.

0:07.6

This is Cold War Conversations. If you're new here, you've come to the right place to listen to first-hand Cold War history accounts.

0:17.6

Do make sure you follow us in your podcast app or join our emailing list at cold warconversations.com.

0:26.2

If we are attacked by nuclear weapons, these are the warning sounds you must recognize.

0:33.2

First, the attack warning.

0:35.8

If an attack is expected, the sirens will sound a rising and falling note like this.

1:10.3

Music Welcome to episode 11 of Cold War Conversations.

1:14.2

That chilling piece of audio you've just heard was from a public information film that was to be broadcast to the British public should nuclear war have

1:19.7

been imminent. Today we're covering the Royal Observer Corps, a British civil defence unit that would

1:26.5

have been in the front line of monitoring a nuclear

1:28.9

attack on the UK. We're talking to Alastair McCann, who has preserved an underground Royal

1:35.4

Observer Corps monitoring post as a museum in Northern Ireland. We talk about the museum, the

1:41.7

difficulties of the Northern Ireland Royal Observer Corps

1:44.3

are in the Troubles and what the reality would have been for these men and women should

1:49.5

the Cold War have turned hot.

1:51.7

I hope you find our conversation as interesting as I did.

1:55.2

We welcome Alistair McCann.

1:57.7

Hi Alistair.

1:58.9

How are you?

1:59.9

I am very well, Ian. Thank you very much for having me on.

2:02.7

Well, no. Thank you very much for coming on Cold War conversations. I really appreciate it,

2:08.3

and I'm quite intrigued to hear about your project. So could you tell me a little bit about

...

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