Surname
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Simpkin
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Forename
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Gordon
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Date of recording
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Jan 2008
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Year of birth
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1927
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Place of Birth
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Billericay
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Occupation
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Fathers occupation
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Present Address
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Aldeburgh
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Location Interview
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Aldeburgh
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Interviewer
Summary |
John Waddell
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Duration
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48 Mins
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No of tracks: 3
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This recording consists of 3 tracks.
Track 1 (14 secs) Introduction Track 2 (39 mins 56 secs) Family details. Born in Billericay, Essex , brought up in Durham and joined the army in 1944 and afterwards became a civil engineer working mainly in the Eastern part of England His "big chance" was coming to Orfordness to work in November 1955 overseeing the building of the access road from the Bailey Bridge to the site of the new laboratories which he also worked on. The laboratories were built, he claims, to test the safety or otherwise of trigger mechanism of the H-bomb under movement and he discusses what he believes to have been the function of all three buildings. In his view there was never a nuclear bomb of any sort on the site despite local rumours. However the laboratories buildings , the construction of which he supervised, were meticulously specified One required even the small holes in the concrete to be filled in. The air conditioning specification called for a rigid requirement of a temperature of 70 degree F and 100 percent moisture content ." If you walked into that from Orfordness it was quite a shock". During the construction heavy snow in February 1956 meant that a bulldozer had to be used every morning to clear the way to work. About 100 people worked on the Ness at this time and were transported from Orford by a military Landing Craft (Vehicles) . The telemetry building which was built was to do with the delivery of the H bomb which at the time was to be by Canberra aircraft . The plan was to drop the bomb and then loop the loop to get clear. After the work on the labs was completed Mr Simpkin moved his office and discovered it was right underneath the frequent flight path of a very low level Canberra aircraft. Once he could see the top of its wings and it had to rise to get over he Bailey Bridge. The aircraft were using a bombing range out to sea between Orford and Aldeburgh. Fishermen were warned to stay away when it was in use. Mr Simpkin talks of the bridge he built across Stoney Ditch on the island. He was also involved in building the base for some portacabins near the lighthouse for a Royal Navy project. The cabins were connected to cables which went out to sea to an unknown destination Mr Simpkin suggests that one possible use might have been to track submarines. The lighthouse was at that time (1957/58) still run on paraffin which was brought by sea from a supply boat the Princess Patricia. The lighthouse keepers , he recalls, unofficially linked the lighthouse to the electricity in the cabins so that they could run their wireless. Track 3 (8 mins 28 secs) Workmen came from as far away as Leiston , Saxmundham and Ipswich to catch the landing craft each morning. Vic Brinkley was the captain . Brinkleys were a well-known Orford family, George Brinkley was the Harbour Master , Janet Brinkley was the telephone operator and Charlie Brinkley was the ferryman at Bawdsey . Workers on the Ness either brought sandwiches or there was a canteen near the old airfield run by the Ministry of Supply. Mr Simpkin tells the story of an amusing incident when a lorry with a load of pipes sank the landing craft . Gun testing was also going on during Mr Simpkin's time on the Ness. Security was not harsh although one sign painter he wished to use could not obtain security clearance, despite having been in the British Army because he had a Greek grandmother. Mr Simpkin recalls the fishing trawler which went ashore on the Ness and from which the smell of fish spread across the Ness. He believed the boat was mislead by the red lights outside the laboratory building. Mr Simpkin discusses shooting hares on the Ness, the bird life as he observed it and various characters among those working there. Two anecdotes about observing a storm which mirrored precisely Turner's painting " Storm off Harwich" and the foaming mouth of the Alde, seen when building at the then Borstal at Hollesley Bay which precisely matched a description by Brendan Behan. |