russian

When Britain built the Windscale nuclear reactors, physicist John Cockcroft insisted on putting huge filters at the tops of the chimneys. They were expensive, awkward, widely regarded as unnecessary, and became known as “Cockcroft’s Follies.” What’s It For? spends most of the song agreeing with the joke. Then, in 1957, one of the reactors caught fire. The supposedly pointless filters trapped much of the radioactive particulate material carried up the chimney. Yes, this happened. Genre: Alternative rock / art rock / brass-driven rock FOX & ROO FOX = true stories ROO = fiction Sources: • UK Nuclear Decommissioning Authority — Windscale history • Sellafield / NDA historical material on the Windscale fire • Contemporary and later accounts of John Cockcroft and the Windscale filters