Sub drama plumbs new depths
I HAVE my doubts about the vast size and expense of Britain’s nuclear deterrent. It is a superpower cold war weapon, when we are no longer a superpower and the Cold War ended 30 years ago. We could and should manage with something smaller and cheaper.
But I still find the self-righteous anti-nuclearism of the British Left irritating. The BBC’s new thriller series Vigil seems to me to be 90 per cent proof CND rubbish. Weirdly, it casts as heroes the far from loveable Police Scotland, while portraying the Royal Navy as a stony-faced nightmare of humourless obstructionism, bad manners, callousness, lies and brutality. Really?
Unlike most of those who have criticised this programme, I have been winched from a helicopter on to – and later off – the heaving deck of a warship. It was surprisingly enjoyable, in its worrying way. And I have spent a weekend as a (not entirely welcome) civilian interloper aboard a nuclear missile submarine, the Polaris boat HMS Repulse.
What I remember above all else was the friendliness and kindness of all those involved, the enduring Naval humour which has for centuries allowed men to bear cramped conditions and danger.
I remember some things especially well: standing next to the captain on top of the conning tower as we negotiated the dreaded Whirlpool of Corryvreckan, a current so fierce it could swing a battlecruiser round. He was trying to stay out of the way of a Soviet spy ship, and knew that if he miscalculated he could put the deterrent out of action for months; a jolly dinner in the wardroom 300ft below the waves, with a great deal of good red wine (viewed by many as a protection against radiation); being allowed to squeeze the Scalextric-like trigger, during an exercise, which would have launched a missile in real life (the rockets were guarded from idiots by two large men armed with wooden clubs); and Sunday morning church, where we sang ‘Dear Lord and Father of mankind, forgive our foolish ways’. No doubt it’s changed, but I still side with the Navy, and resent the way they are shown in this drama.