Echoes of Armageddon

From the mid-1950s the role of the Royal Observation Corps (ROC) was to monitor nuclear bomb explosions and the drift of fallout in the event of war with the USSR. To facilitate this 875  underground monitoring posts were built throughout the UK. Some remained operational as recently as 1991.
The monitoring post was entered down a steel ladder in a 15 foot deep shaft. In the underground bunker three observers used surface probes to detect the direction and power of bomb bursts. These measurements were then reported to Group HQ bunkers where the position of the burst was determined by triangulation.
The photograph shows the line of telephone poles associated with the ROC Bunker situated on the cliff tops above Port Erroll a few miles north of our home. Given that a priority target would doubtless have been the radar station at RAF Buchan, a couple of miles to the North, I doubt very much that the telephones would have been working!