Transcript
[MUSIC PLAYING]
NARRATOR
Suddenly, science was sexy.
MAN
Morning.
WOMAN
Morning.
MAN
More VIPs?
WOMAN
No. Boffins.
[MUSIC PLAYING]
DR BRYON TAYLOR
It was just part of this feeling that science has done great things, can do great things, and will do great things, and we were just part of it.
SCIENTIST
If one of us went to a conference, there might be newspaper headlines - atom man will be there. It was very, very heady.
NARRATOR
More than 5,000 atom men and women landed in a small part of the northwest of England. The locals came up with their own names for the invaders.
NEVILLE RAMSDEN
Probably the favourite was the atomics, to describe to new people in the village.
JOHN HARRIS
I can remember all laughing one morning because of the headline. Britain's Atom Age Heroes. And then you did feel that we were in the vanguard of being something really new.
REPORTER
Men dressed like visitors from Mars add a slightly sinister touch to the hospital atmosphere of the laboratory.
NARRATOR
The local town of Seascale, just a few hundred yards from the site, was becoming Britain's first atomic town.
ROBERTA COOPER
Seascale was an absolutely marvellous place to grow up. It really was. There were golf classes, a riding school, ballroom dancing classes, ballet classes, tea dances, even, in the Windscale Club.
MARGARET DAVIS
All the people were young and ambitious, and there was chemists, there was teachers, there was physicists. There was all kinds of people. People from all over the world. We all got on wonderfully well, and it really was-- it was quite exciting.
NARRATOR
Seascale was called the brainiest town in Britain.