Radioactive clock that could have killed me!
Husband’s gift to his wife from a Russian sub gave off deadly rays
FOR a wife with a keen interest in the Navy, this vintage clock was the perfect present.
But there was just one problem with Mark Rayden’s thoughtful gift, which took pride of place on the kitchen wall.
The £250 clock – which had come from a Russian nuclear submarine – was emitting potentially dangerous levels of radiation.
It was only when a friend – a former admiral who had been in charge of Britain’s nuclear submarine fleet – asked whether radioactivity levels had been checked that the family realised there was a danger.
Mr Rayden’s wife Ali, a journalist specialising in maritime issues, said she ‘didn’t anticipate a Russian threat hanging in plain sight next to the kettle’.
‘We were chatting and my friend suddenly asked if I’d checked to see if the clock was radioactive,’ she said from the family’s home in Winchester, Hampshire.
‘I could tell that he was serious and, given the gravity of his previous role, decided to buy a Geiger counter sharpish.’ After finding one online that plugged into her smartphone she tested the clock – and found radiation levels that were similar to a hospital CT scan.
While these are safe for the occasional scanning of patients, longterm exposure can be serious.
‘The Royal Navy have always been so obsessive about safety. Whenever I’ve been on one of their submarines, a group of engineers are constantly monitoring the reactor,’ Mrs Rayden, 46, said.
‘I suppose I assumed the Russians would be the same. Shortterm exposure to radiation like this isn’t dangerous, but the clock sitting in our kitchen for a decade would have raised our risk of developing cancer significantly.
‘I’m expecting some tittering in the ranks over this, but we’re also really grateful to our friend for his advice. I don’t think Mark is trying to kill me, at least I hope not.’
The clock, which Mr Rayden, 47, bought from an antiques dealer, has been banished to the garden shed of the four-bedroom home the couple share with their 11-year-old daughter Molly.
It is thought the clock had been on board a Cold War-era submarine with a leaky nuclear reactor. The Raydens plan to return it to the dealer it was bought from in Devon. Mrs Rayden believes it may have come from a 1980s hunter-killer or retired Typhoon-class submarine. Ryan Ramsey, commanding officer of nuclear submarine HMS Turbulent until 2011, said: ‘Russian submarines were renowned for less-than-stringent controls in how they managed the reactors.
‘Plus, if the clock’s got luminosity that can send the radiation readings rocketing.’