An Anchor Underground

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If you were growing up in Birmingham in the fifties and sixties and spent any time at all in the City centre and environs, you would have been aware of the Bailey bridge that apparently had zero traffic function in Digbeth - taking vehicles up and over apparently nothing at all. This structure lasted for quite a few years before being dismantled and returning the thoroughfare to its original state, as if nothing had happened.

The official story behind the bridge and the large number of heavy trucks that used to trundle in and out from under the thing, was that Birmingham was to have an underground railway system to relieve the congestion of the City above. This story was dropped early on to the tune of various rumours as to why the project had been shelved - a popular one being that the Birmingham soil would not support the tunnelling.

The truth of the matter is that it was all a blind to hide the construction of an enormous, nuclear-hardened telephone exchange that would form the centre of a national Civil Defence communications structure should the Cold War suddenly turn hot. The exchange was given a name which reflected the area of the City above - Anchor: the Birmingham Assay mark (the Assay Office was just down and across Newhall Street from Telephone House which stood above the secret exchange).

Birmingham has connections not just with the Cold War, but with the reasons for that non-conflict conflict's existence; Birmingham University having played a significant rôle in the development of the very Atomic weapons that precipitated the Cold War in the aftermath of World War Two. I'll expand on both these themes later, as I'm running out of steam at the moment and need to recharge over a glass of wine. More later.

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