A Path Through Nuclear Science, Civil Service, and Public Safety
David Bradley reflects on a civil service career that included a stint in the DTI and the Nuclear Installations Inspectorate David Bradley was born in 1933 to experience life in Rochdale both before and throughout the Second World War. The 1944 Education Act enabled David to get a place at the Rochdale Municipal High School for Boys (formally a scholarship and fee-paying institution). In September 1944 David’s first classroom was housed in a little used concert hall, unsupervised at lunch time allowing pupils to roam. Early in November that year David and his friends were experiencing rides in the Hall’s electricity powered ‘dumbwaiter’ lift.
When it was David’s turn, the floor of the lift partially collapsed and David was dragged against the shaft wall suffering crushing injuries. David’s classmates helped him back to the school building where a teacher called an ambulance. David spent over a week in hospital returning to school a couple of weeks later just in time to take exams that would determine in which class he would be place in until his matriculation, his exam results ensuring that he would remain in the ‘C’ form where physics was dropped in favour of wood work. David was punished for his behaviour although the incident was not further investigated by responsible authority.
David matriculated in 1948 and entered the sixth form to study Chemistry, Mathematics and Physics, the latter under the guidance of a recently returned soldier, a disciplinarian. David obtained the ‘A’ levels he needed and gained a place at the University College of Leicester to study for an external degree in Special (Atomic energy content) Chemistry from the University of London. David graduated in 1956 when he was offered a job with the United Kingdom Atomic Energy Authority at their manufacturing facility in Preston, working into processes to manufacture fuel elements for the nation’s new breed of gas cooled reactors, otherwise he worked on processes to recover uranium and plutonium from depleted fuel elements.
When experiments didn’t go according to expectation, it was thought that radiation must be changing the environment in which the chemistry was taking place, a circumstance then difficult to explain. David was curious! By chance a colleague in the laboratory with whom David also shared his lodgings, mentioned that a Senior lecturer at the University of Salford which had links with the Paterson Laboratories of the Christie Hospital in Manchester was looking for someone with experience in working with radioactive materials to do some research into the effects of radiation on matter. The UKAEA agreed that David could take an unpaid leave of absence, with his return guaranteed. David was nervous about how he would finance this research opportunity but took a chance, financing his research by part time teaching. David was awarded a PhD in 1964 for his work in research in the little-known science of Radiation Chemistry.
The UKAEA was true to its word, notwithstanding that David’s new posting would be to Dounreay in the North of Scotland, a bit too far from for him to continue with his newly acquired social experience. David continued his research at the Christie Hospital Paterson Laboratories working with clinicians experienced in the use of radiation to treat cancers. David, who had just been introduced to his future wife was undecided about a career in medical research but continued with this for the next two years along with teaching at the Royal College of Advanced Technology in Huddersfield. David and Beth were married in February 1965. Later that year David was offered a three-year contract at the nuclear research centre in Lucas Heights in Australia, a fresh start and new opportunities. Ready to take up the appointment, on 05 November 1965 David and Beth who were then expecting their first baby, were returning home from a visit to Harwell and a retirement dinner for his university professor when they were involved in the first ‘motorway madness’ crash on the M6 when several people lost their lives and many others were injured.
David thought that he and Beth were safe, parked on the hard shoulder. Beth had exited the car, standing between the half open car door and the car itself when a large lorry collided with a car now parked to David’s right lifting it sideways and onto David’s ‘Mini.’ Both David and Beth were trapped; a fire started to the rear of their car; it seemed a lifetime before they were freed. A few days later Beth miscarried her four-month gestation unborn baby. The insurance company refused to consider the loss of an unborn child in its compensation payment. This incident and consequential health concerns determined a rethink over a fresh offer of emigration and Australian citizenship.
In 1968 David was told by a friend whom he had met at university about a job in the Civil Service that might fulfil his interests. David applied and was offered the job as one of three technical advisers to the Director of the Northern Regional Office of the DTI. David and his wife moved to Newcastle on Tyne on a cold New Year’s Day, Sunday 1969. Beth who had not before been inside the house they had bought in the village of Whickham of necessity in anticipation of the birth of a child in March was apprehensive. A fire in the hearth greeted them as movers unloaded their furniture but it soon burned out…. the ‘coal place’ had been swept clean.
With no access to a supplier of fuel a kind neighbour provided a bucket of coke which lasted just for an hour or two before use had to be made of an electric heater with just two bars working. Monday was a bank holiday in the Northeast. David went into the office of the DTI on the following day where he was greeted a Dr Jones who shook David’s hand and registered David’s presence, immediately sending him home for a couple of days to sort things out. David’s work was fascinating with involvement in the Harold Wilson “white heat technological revolution” when government grants were being used to attract new industries to the Region, their technical and commercial viability had to be qualified.
Otherwise and with the help of five ‘Industrial Liaison Officers’ David was able to access research centres and universities throughout the region and establish links that enabled support in the development of new ideas and concepts. A hint of ‘Yes Minister’ but the atmosphere was full of compelling enthusiasm and friendly.
For over eight happy years the family was settled in the lovely village of Whickham on the banks of the Tyne where David rowed with Tyne Rowing Club and otherwise grew leeks, watched rugby in Bladen, maintained his property and spent time with his family exploring the beautiful Northumberland countryside, its castles and its harbours and walking along Hadrian’s Wall. During those years, Beth gave birth to three ‘Geordies,’ two boys and a girl. Neighbours and people they met became lifelong friends. By the early 1970s the government grants system was failing, government money was short and jobs brought to the region were often highly technical and fewer than expected, some new companies brought with them their own labour force.
Occasionally companies cheated, sub hiring out ‘trial equipment’ paid for by the taxpayer but prosecutions were rare. The nation was facing unrest, with strikes by miners and consequential blackouts, much seemingly politically contrived. David was given the unpleasant task of finding jobs for his ILOs, otherwise spending time showing Ministers round the Region and serving on committees to organise conferences and visits by VIPs (on one occasion, Prince Philip).
In 1972 David was asked if he was willing to be transferred to work with the Nuclear Installations Inspectorate based in Liverpool; a ‘no brainer’ David thought, a continuance of his interested in nuclear science and notwithstanding his family’s disappointment at having to leave Whickham, a posting to Liverpool would bring him closer to his ageing family in Rochdale who were experiencing significant and pressing health issues that needed his help. The months went by with no further communication from London, David was unaware that the IPMS Union had objected to his transfer on the grounds that his qualifications and grading as a Principal Scientific Officer were unacceptable to his future colleagues.
Senior management at HQ persisted however and David was imposed upon an uncompromising local management in 1974. Following a difficult first year of his posting when he lodged in a hotel returning home at weekends David was finally accepted and made friends with his colleagues who thereafter co-operated with him in the development of inspectorate protocol and otherwise worked in the assessment of safety in new plant manufacturing nuclear fuel. The job was full of interest with opportunity to meet with other regulators in Europe and the United States.
Beth and David settled on the coast in the small town of Formby where their three children went to school, later to graduate at university; their eldest son John became a biologist, their daughter Jane an administrator and their youngest son, Andrew a pediatrician. Beth and David’s eldest son died in April 2009, the coroner identifying SADS as the cause, otherwise they are blessed with three grandchildren, two girls and a boy, the two girls starting university in October 2024, Daniel will take his ‘A’ levels next year. David retired in 1993 following quite a party at which he should have received an ornate certificate from the Royal Society of Chemistry that formally recognised his qualification as a Health and Safety Specialist.
The presentation did not happen, someone in the office had defaced the certificate with an office receipt stamp and scribbled signature, some joke! David maintained his interest in things ‘Nuclear’ and particularly in those issues related to climate change and the sustainability of sources of clean energy and is currently in the process of updating a history of events leading to what journalist Margaret Pinho describes in an article published in Chemistry World April 2023 as a state of chaos in the management of radioactive waste by the Nuclear Decommissioning Authority, which if left unresolved could prejudice the future of nuclear energy in the UK. David is highly critical of the Committee on Radioactive Waste Management which in 2006 advised the Nuclear Decommissioning Authority to abandon the nation’s inventory of heritage radioactive waste to a Geological Disposal Facility on the grounds that this is the ‘least worst option’ and that disposal is what “other nuclear nations do with their radioactive waste.” The former is scientifically naïve and the latter is a lie.
No longer able to enjoy his hill walking activities David spends some of his time writing to MPs and Ministers on issues of concern, something he calls his distractions; otherwise describing his career as profoundly interesting but unplanned, adding that the Scientific Civil Service offers a good and secure career all round, notwithstanding that applicants should make themselves aware of ‘Estacode’, the Civil Service code of conduct, before taking it on. David describes his life as being overwhelmingly exciting, a mixture of sunshine and showers, sad at times but with the irreplaceable love of a wonderful family and many friends.