One of today’s excursions into nuclear cultural heritage- the control room training simulator for the Ignalina Nuclear Power Plant, Lithuania #nuspaces

Nipped into Wales on the way up the road from Keele the other day.Naturally I found myself at Trawsfynydd, a decommissioning nuclear power station in Snowdonia. Basil Spence-designed; Sylvia Crowe-landscaped. Walking is encouraged,the route round the llyn skirts the site boundary

As the contract is signed and the writing well underway, I can announce that my book, ‘Electric Wind’, an energy history of modern Britain, will be published with Manchester University Press in Spring 2025 ⚡️🌬️

Looking forward to Ewan & Riyoko’s Grangemouth report! An essential piece of work, with timing which has the potential to make real impact. The history of industrial build up & closures across Scotland offers a lot for contemporary concerns like this

Thanks to everyone who attended our #ILPC2024 panel on labour agency in the 20th century oil industry. It was great to present my research on the Nigg fabrication yard in the Scottish Highlands alongside Dave Featherstone on seafaring and Mattin Biglari on Iranian oil refining.

Thurso, Surf City - the Scottish National Surfing Championships have rolled into town

A snippet

The former Dounreay Ormlie Lodge Hostel, for single employees& those awaiting atomic houses. By all accounts it was a riot of scientists, & it was here where everyone!s fave ‘Haggis’ unofficial works’ mag was edited. Love its sketch of the planned women’s elevation. No mixing! 😜

The range of biscuits at today’s Dounreay Reminiscence Group in Wick say so much, without saying anything at all ❤️

THERE’S A PLATE TOO, REPEAT, THERE’S A PLATE TOO 🤩

Thank you for alerting me to these beauties Lochs Stiles Paul Barlow

Today, the Dounreay/Thurso hinterland. Including Loch Calder, which provides domestic supply to the area as well as having a role to play in freshwater for Dounreay. And, of course, the timeless delight of Caithness flagstone fencing.

Not getting over tonight’s Thurso seascapes in a hurry 🖤

Chose a wild night for a walk to Scrabster for dinner. Still, en route I got to see how, nearly 70 yrs later, the Dounreay atomic timber houses continue to reflect their designers’ (Simms Sons & Cooke)aim that ‘their weather resisting properties would be equal to the conditions’

Heaton Cooper wrote in his autobio that he made pre-construction studies during ‘a period of storm weather in March, with black hail storms coming out of the north and between them great shafts of sunlight flashing onto the rocky coast’. Today, 69 yrs later, was windy& changeable

Big congratulations to Julian! 🥳 Julian Grant

You can find more about Julian's research into People, Place and the North Coast 500 here, bit.ly/3OIzFX3, UHI Research

I don’t have an image source, this is screenshotted (with thanks) from my colleague Phil’s fb. We believe the artworks are in private ownership but would love to track them down. One sold at auction in 2019, I’ve not done much digging so if anyone has any info feel free to share

The work of William Heaton Cooper, who mainly painted Lake District & other mountain landscapes. He was commissioned by the UKAEA to paint watercolours of the still-to-be-constructed Dounreay sphere in 1955. An imagined near future, they’re astonishingly beautiful

New article by Saima Ashipala and Christopher Hill about the secret logistics that delivered uranium from Namibia to Britain - transported under the guise of a kitchen hardware company - and the 1980 documentary 'Follow the Yellowcake Road':
gesis.org/en/hsr/abstr/4…

TFW you’re preparing your ideal lecture but you’re in Thurso for 2 weeks so could only take your best pals 🤩