New Statesman Scotland
Every time this diary finds itself crossing the Forth Road Bridge in a northerly direction the naval base at Rosyth swims into mind. Or at least the eight or nine retired nuclear-powered submarines lying at Rosyth swim into mind. For some years the Ministry of Defence has been scratching its collective head over what to do with them. The Royal Navy, it seems, is all for towing them into the deep Atlantic and sinking them to the bottom. Her Majesty's government probably thinks this is a good idea but knows that any such scheme would whip up a positive hurricane of environmental outrage from both sides of the pond.
So, what to do? One option would be to slice the boats into bits and bury them in a deep and secure hole somewhere in the UK. The trouble is, no such hole exists and no such hole is being planned.
We could consider the American route. This would mean towing the boats across the Atlantic, through the Panama Canal and then up to the shipyard at Puget Sound, near Seattle. There they would be cut up, their reactor compartments encased in steel, loaded on to barges and shipped up the Columbia River to the Port of Benton. At Benton they would be loaded on to special trailers and hauled across the Washington desert to a site called Hanford to be given a decent burial (along with the US Navy's own decommissioned nuclear subs).
Which sounds fine, but there is a problem. The nuclear subs at Rosyth have been lying around for so long that they may no longer be seaworthy. So what can we do? The solution, so far, seems to be to let them lie rusting quietly, within a dozen miles of Edinburgh. One for Holyrood? But Holyrood has no remit over defence.
Anyone looking for a real insight into the texture of late 20th-century Scottish society could do worse than buy a copy of the Directory of Scotland's Organisations by W W Baird and K H Whittles. At £35 a copy it does not come cheap but it is worth every penny. As well as being one of the best contact lists currently available, it offers fascinating glimpses into the way we live now. Where else would you find a number for, let's say, Scotland Against Being Ruled by Europe, which trails the splendid acronym of Sabre? Sabre is not one of William Hague's latest wheezes: according to the Directory it has been going for 25 years.
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