Chatham Dockyard (35 page)

Constructed, therefore, during the late 1960s, the complex was officially opened by Vice Admiral Horace Law on 29 June 1968. Making use of the two adjoining dry docks, its most noticeable feature was a 120-ton hammerhead travelling crane that was easily visible from much of the area that surrounded the dockyard. Standing in the region of 50m in height, its purpose was that of lifting a portable refuelling workshop (the Reactor House) on to the submarine which would already have been brought into one of the two dry docks. Once attached to the submarine, and from within the Reactor House, an opening was cut into the hull for the purpose of removing the spent nuclear fuel and inserting new fuel. In addition to the crane, the complex was flanked by offices and workshops together with the various units that maintained the submarine while the reactor was shut down and which included core coolant, coolant discharge and electrical supply. Also playing its part in the refitting process was the Factory, this considerably modernised with the addition of air-conditioned clean rooms where equipment could be cleaned ultrasonically, washed with demineralised water and hot-air dried.

The first submarine to enter the complex was
Valiant
. Entering No.6 Dock in May 1970, she was finally returned to naval service some two years later. As well as being refuelled, she received a complete refit that included the stripping out and refurbishing of all her systems, the reinstallation of new equipment, rectification of known defects and general equipment modification. At the same time, tests were undertaken on the integrity of her hull, this involving non-destructive examination surveys. In total, and prior to her floating out from the No.6 Dock, this was to consume in excess of some 2 million hours of work, a sum total that represented some 50 per cent of the dockyard’s total ship work capability. Apart from
Valiant
, the fleet nuclear submarines
Warspite, Churchill, Conqueror, Courageous
and
Dreadnought
were all to be refuelled and refitted at Chatham. In addition, and prior to the closure of the yard in 1984,
Sovereign
, a ‘Swiftsure’ class submarine was also refitted at the complex, with a number of additional dockings for essential refits also undertaken.

At the time of the building of the complex, and also during its period of operation, much had been made of its high levels of safety. This was to offset concerns within the Medway area that there was a potential for radiation leaks that could have a negative impact upon those employed in and around the site. One Admiralty-sanctioned publication, first
issued during the mid-1970s, while accepting that there were potential dangers, attempted to allay concerns by providing an explanation of how uranium and other fission products within a submarine reactor core were handled:

The last Chatham Navy Days took place in May 1981 with a full programme of events. This is the front cover of the printed programme for that occasion. A further Navy Days was planned for 1982 but unfortunately was cancelled due to the Falklands conflict placing other requirements on the vessels that would have been present on that final occasion.

Other fission products with much longer half-lives still remain in the core at the end of core life, and this highly concentrated source of radioactivity in all the structural parts of the core present a formidable problem when refuelling is carried out. Therefore remote handling techniques, heavy shielding, strict radiological controls and extensive operator training are used to make refuelling a safe operation. Loading the new fuel is relatively simple; although the new core contains a considerable amount of fissile material there is no radiation hazard from active fissile products.
¹⁵

Awareness of these locally expressed health concerns had also given rise to numerous official statements at the time that construction of the complex had first been announced, these indicating that safety was the major priority. During the summer of 1965, the
Chatham Observer
quoted dockyard managers as saying that two watchwords would govern how the complex would be run: safety and absolute care. They indicated that workers who came into contact with radiation would be checked and re-checked, with this all being overseen in a special Health Physic building that was to lay alongside the complex and which was, indeed, constructed.

Unfortunately, and as seemingly verified by former workers and their families, because of work within the complex often being under pressure of time ‘proper monitoring and safety were not always in place’. At least this was the view of Jonathan Shaw, following his election to parliament for the Chatham constituency in 1997. In his maiden speech, he cited the case of David Spriggs, a refitter on the submarine
Dreadnought
:

He was working deep in the heart of a reactor when a pipe burst above his head and drenched him in water. The supervisor reportedly told him to carry on until the end of the shift, when the Geiger counter showed alarming levels of radiation exposure. Following the accident, which the Ministry of Defence [MOD] called a serious incident, David Spriggs was told to take six months off, yet he was back at work within a couple of weeks because of pressure of work at the dockyard.

Later on in the same speech, Shaw added:

A further concern to us in the Medway towns is that the MOD may not have done all that it could to ensure that all available safety systems were in place at Chatham. It failed to install the new safety system, Modex, an American invention, which was introduced in American yards in the 1960s and early 1970s. It was a significant development in dose abatement technology. According to the Defence Committee report of 1990, it reduces the dose burden within the reactor compartment by a factor of four to eight. Modex was introduced at Devonport and Rosyth in about 1979, but it was never installed at Chatham.

All of these concerns had first been raised in 1990 as a result of a number of former dockyard workers having contracted various cancers. Tim Robson, at that time a Rochester city councillor and, himself, formerly employed on nuclear submarines within the complex, had begun to assemble evidence of these various shortfalls. Unfortunately, a year after he had begun the campaign, he learnt that he had also contracted cancer. Despite this, and prior to his death in August 1995 at the age of just thirty-nine, he continued his campaign, winning the support of Rochester-upon-Medway City Council in January 1994. From then on the council used its resources to press the Ministry of Defence to provide annual health checks for former dockyard workers, so that it would be possible for them to detect at the earliest possible stages whether they had a cancer that could be attributed to radiation exposure.

In his speech to the House of Commons, Shaw was able to conclude that a considerable step forward on the issue had finally been made:

After years of campaigning, a significant step was taken in June this year, when my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary of State for Defence launched a local counselling scheme in partnership with Rochester City Council. Under that scheme, expert doctors provide advice locally to former workers and their families. Since the scheme was launched, 210 enquiries have been made nationally for dosage records from the MOD, and 94 per cent of them have come from people who worked at Chatham. That demonstrates the success and importance of a local scheme rather than having to rely on a national one. On the same day, my hon. Friend announced that the MOD would invest £1 million on improving access to radiation dose records not currently held on computer.

Shaw further pointed out, that while he now represented the Chatham constituency, there had been a previous Labour candidate, his friend and colleague, the ex-dockyard worker, Tim Robson:

He was selected at a time when we hoped that his health was improving, such was his determination to enter this House to represent the people of Chatham, a place where he had lived all his life and of which he was genuinely proud.
¹⁶

The story, however, does not end at that point. It took a further year for the government to finally admit that workers at Chatham might have contracted cancer through contact with high levels of radiation.
¹⁷
Furthermore, it was also revealed that many of the health records formerly kept within the former Health Physic building had been lost or damaged, so making it difficult for those who might have a claim to actually make that claim.

Further claims against the Ministry of Defence have also been made by other groups of workers, demonstrating that there was a horrendous and hidden downside to life in the dockyard. An impossible to estimate number of those employed in the Factory, particularly those operating lathes, milling machines or when riveting plates were subject to a later hearing loss, with the Ministry of Defence having to accept liability due to the limited availability of ear defenders. One successful claimant, when working inside a ship or submarine, was quoted by his solicitor as saying, ‘I was exposed to the noise created by the Chipper, who worked outside. For me, it felt like working inside an empty shell. The noise never went away.’
¹⁸
Others who suffered as a result of working in the dockyard were those who came into contact with asbestos. An insulation material used in the yard because of its corrosion- and heat-resistant properties, the resulting dust when breathed in can lead to asbestosis, a deadly disease that affects the lungs and for which there is no cure. In a typical refit during the 1960s, some 300 asbestos-containing materials were commonly used, most frequently in the insulation of hot steam pipes, hot water lines and fuel lines on pumps, turbines, compressors and condensers with boilers also given asbestos brick and asbestos linings. A radiological survey of 10 per cent of the whole population of the dockyard at Chatham showed that over 2 per cent had abnormalities attributable to the inhalation of asbestos.
¹⁹
In one well-publicised case, John Stepney recovered a substantial sum arising from his contraction of mesothelioma, a cancer caused by asbestos dust. Throughout his working life at the dockyard he was exposed to asbestos through the undertaking of his work on ships and from piles of rubble that also contained asbestos in the dockyard.

Despite the risk to health, combined with workplace accidents that varied in seriousness, the closure of the dockyard was not something to be reflected upon with any degree of pleasure. As Ben_10000, a contributor to the Kent History Forum blog site, recently noted in a discussion on some of the radiation dangers presented by the dockyard, ‘it’s odd to think that we used to live so close to a Nuclear facility (I could see it from my bedroom) and that we fought to keep it. But it was jobs I guess. My father worked in the yard for many, many years’.
²⁰
And that was the point of fighting to keep the dockyard open: it was not just the jobs or the money that this work created for the local economy but it was also something more. The dockyard gave to the Medway Towns a feeling of pride and it gave the Towns a place in the world. For its work on naval warships, the Medway area could be justly proud. That changing technology had made it a more dangerous place in which to work was seemingly immaterial against this greater threat. For this reason, and despite the environment of the dockyard having become considerably noisier and less pleasant since the laying down of the first ironclads, any accompanying concerns were simply put to one side. The dockyard was threatened with closure and the future of the Medway Towns was looking as bleak as bleak could be.

11

T
HE
R
ISE OF THE
P
HOENIX

Periscope
, the Chatham naval base newspaper, carried a headline in its November 1980 edition that seemed to herald a bright future for the 16,000 workers of the dockyard. The accompanying lead story, in referring to a recent government publication, The Dockyard Study Report, indicated that a commitment had been made to the definite retention of Chatham as a naval dockyard. In assuring its readers that none might fear future redundancy,
Periscope
also paraphrased the words of Navy Minister Keith Speed who, in a written answer to a parliamentary question from Peggy Fenner, MP for Rochester and Chatham, had recently stated:

The government accepts the recommendation in the report and confirms the need to retain the four home dockyards though the levels of employment in each dockyard will depend on the success of their management and workforce in improving efficiency.