Falkirk War HQ and Civil Defence Headquarters

Written by Geoff Bailey on 01 November 2024.

Immediately to the east of the District Courts adjoining the Falkirk Municipal Buildings in West Bridge Street stood, until recently, a sombre low brick building with no windows. Its thick flat reinforced concrete roof imparts a low profile in every meaning of that phrase. Its anonymous character and resemblance to a utilitarian electric substation meant that it went largely unnoticed as motorists passed by it on foot to their cars parked in the vast expanse of asphalt to the north. Alongside the building young trees grew in the narrow gap between it and the boundary wall, shading and hiding it. The purple brick of the tall boundary wall matched that of the Municipal Buildings and acted as further camouflage. This bland unassuming hidden blockhouse was to be the seat of local government had full war broken out during the Cold War.

For those in the know it passed by various names – the Falkirk Area Control Centre or the Falkirk Wartime Headquarters being just two.

The boundary wall only embraced the west and south sides of the building and was erected at the same time as the Municipal Buildings to enhance the appearance of the surrounding area as much as to hide the ugly structure. To the north was a grassed area which backed onto the rear wall of the headquarters building which made a suitable goal for boys playing football. Peeking above the boundary wall was a cylindrical metal vent with a conical cap to vent foul air from a generator.

By 2015 the thick felt that once covered the roof was peeling and the interior was very damp causing the ceiling and wall linings to slowly disintegrate. These were of straw board attached to wooden battens fixed to the concrete roof and brick walls by hardened steel nails. When in use the only heating would have been provided by portable Calor gas heaters – but it was seldom used. Most of the time it lay forlorn and empty.

Before going into further detail of its intended use and putting it into historical context it will be of interest to give a description of the building as it stood in 2015. The main structure was 12.8m broad and 19.5m long. The entrance was located in a small porch on the south end of the building – latterly protected by a metal roller shutter door. This gave access to a small lobby with a slightly larger room to the right. This empty room was to be the kitchen. The lack of fixtures was accounted for by the fact that it was to be fitted out with a portable Calor gas cooker when required for use. Spare cylinders would be kept nearby. Opposite the kitchen a door led to the corridor which ran along the central spine of the building. The electric switchboard was located at the southern end of the corridor. The wall on the right of the corridor was the load-bearing one and it was on this side that the principal rooms were to be found.

The first of these was the Communications Room. Down each side were wooden acoustic telephonists’ booths, four along each long wall. Each of these booths had a task light with a reflective disc suspended from the top. On the bottom right was a protruding telephone dial with a switch next to it. The telephonists wrote down any incoming messages on special pads and passed them through one of two hatches at either end of the wall into the adjoining operations room. One of the telephones was coloured red and was the hotline to the police. It was tested periodically. As well as telephone links with the outside there were two static radios here. One of the radios was used to contact anyone in the outside world; the other was reserved for communications with the mobile HQ van.

The local Civil Defence had two green-painted vans that were kept at the Burgh Stables in High Station Road – the mobile HQ and a rescue van. The latter was an empty van with seats down the sides and some equipment, such as ladders. Its movements were dictated by messages from the Control Centre. The wireless room was operated by the Signals Unit, which itself was split in two. Signals “A” dealt with the static wireless; Signals “B” maintained the landlines. “B” was composed entirely of men, although there were some female telephonists.

The operations room was the biggest room in the bunker. On the south and east walls were large boards to house maps of the local area. Strip lights with reflectors were positioned in the ceiling to highlight these. On a visit to the building in 2003 there were still two small boards containing maps of the town of Falkirk, and of the Stirling and Clackmannanshire group area showing controls and sector posts, but by 2015 these were soggy messes on the floor. Two hatches in the south wall allowed hand-written massages to be passed from and to the telephonists in the Communications Room and a single hatch in the north wall from the Scientific Advisers.

The final room on the right hand side was also empty with a wallboard for a map on the north wall, also with a highlighter strip. This room was allocated to the Scientific Advisers and here data regarding the radioactive fallout was collated.

The room immediately to the west of this was for the Liaison Officers. These officers would have worked closely with the scientists to provide instructions on the release of designated areas from a form of lockdown once the radioactive levels were deemed low enough and for this reason there was another large map on its north wall. Located in the west wall of this room was the emergency exit. For the protection of those inside the building this was bricked up at the time of construction but the lintel meant that it was possible to remove the bricks when essential without the rest of the wall collapsing. On the outside the position of the emergency exit was given away by the presence of a covered porch.

Returning along the corridor the first room was called a Rest Room or dormitory. During use this would have been filled with camp beds, bedding and personal items. This room was probably reserved for the female occupants of the HQ. Then there was the female toilet and a shower, followed by the male toilets. In between the two was a small cupboard-like room with a Butler sink and draining board at one end, a water heater on the wall in the middle, and a wooden cupboard and preparation surface at the other end. This operated as the scullery, the kitchen being too small to include these tasks.

Beyond these was a second Rest Room for the men and then the final room was the Plant Room. The generator was placed on a concrete plinth at the south end of the room and once a week Mr Grant would set it running to make sure that it was in good working order. It was removed around 1968 and its replacement was only to be put into position when an emergency was anticipated. The north end of the room was occupied by the ventilation and filtration plant. Ventilation trunking and some electric switchgear was still intact in 2015.

The War HQ was built around 1950 and was a larger replacement for that used in the Second World War which was located at Arnotdale House in Dollar Park. The Dollar Park building lies behind the house and is now in use as offices and a nursery. It was used throughout the war to coordinate the Air Raid Precautions and Civil Defence services and was protected by the Home Guard. It too contained large maps of the area with plotters indicating the location of fire-fighting appliances, ambulances, bomb damage, gas attacks and the like.

During the Second World War schemes were put in place to cope with the effects of conventional bombing campaigns. This meant feeding the population, clothing them and, if necessary, evacuating them to safe areas. Rescue squads could take injured people from stricken buildings which then had to be made safe or demolished and essential services restored. At the end of the war most of this system was dismantled in the euphoria of victory and the return of peace - only to be reassembled from 1948 onwards once the Cold War with the USSR began in earnest.

The new War HQ was located at the north end of a small lane running parallel to and west of Wellside Place. Here it overlooked the mansion of Westbank which had been bought from the Nimmo family for use as the municipal headquarters. It was therefore convenient for Falkirk Council staff but sufficiently secluded to go almost unnoticed and unlikely to be a prime target for conventional bombs.

Despite the development of nuclear weapons the civil defence planning remained much as it had during the Second World War. This was in part due to the technical difficulties of countering the effects or radiation but also due to the lack of funds dedicated to the task.

“Civil Defence” was defined in the Civil Defence Act of 1948 as including “any resources not amounting to actual combat for affording defence against hostile attack by a foreign power…” The aims were amplified by the British Government as being: a. To secure the United Kingdom against internal threat. b. To mitigate as far as practicable the effects of any direct attack on the United Kingdom involving the use of conventional, nuclear, biological or chemical weapons. c. To provide alternative machinery of government at all levels to increase the prospects of and to direct national survival. d. To enhance the basis for national recovery in the post attack period.

The NATO military and political assessments were that prior to any outbreak of hostilities there would be a stage of international tension which would provide a period of some weeks for the implementation of war emergency plans. War would then take the form of targeted nuclear strikes and the use of conventional forces. It was in this interlude that Regional Plans would be invoked and the Falkirk HQ populated. It was estimated that civilian casualties would range from 5 to 40% of the population. Essential services would be severely disrupted and there would be a need to cope with radioactive fallout. The objective of the Regional Plan for Stirlingshire (and later Central Region) was to retain a framework of local government so that the surviving resources could be properly marshalled and law and order maintained. The rescue of victims and the application of first aid to be administered immediately after an attack were a secondary goal.

The infrastructure was slowly put into place over the years following 1948 and a Civil Defence force was recruited. Regular drills and exercises were carried out until 1968 when the force was disbanded. Thereafter the period of tension was vital to the implementation of the plan and it was only then that the large sums of money necessary would be released. Covert measures would be started immediately upon the perceived threat of imminent war so that the general public was unaware of them. Depending upon the international situation these would be complemented by overt measures to prepare the population. By the end of the period there would either be a return to normality or the Zone and Regional Headquarters would have been activated.

The activation of the wartime headquarters was to be phased. At the onset of the threat of hostilities the staff were to be briefed, call-out arrangements checked, premises to be inspected (water tanks filled with fresh water, machinery put in place and started, etc). Stores were to be collected and the headquarters furnished. As the situation deteriorated the headquarters were to be manned 24 hours a day and finally all of the staff were to take up their posts and emergency regulations enacted.

Falkirk lay within the Western Zone of Scotland and the Regional Controller was the chief executive of first Stirlingshire County Council and subsequently Central Regional Council. If communications were cut off he would exercise the full powers of internal government over the Region until they were re-established. The Central Regional HQ was in the basement of New Viewforth, with an alternative at Buchanan Street in Balfron. The Regional Controller appointed the District Controllers at Falkirk and Alloa who were usually the corresponding heads of local government. It was partly for this reason that the District Wartime HQ for Falkirk was close to the Municipal Buildings. The town clerk (later the chief executive) of Falkirk would set up a small District Emergency Committee formed of three or more elected members. The District Controller was responsible for assessing the local situation, determining priorities, identifying and co-ordinating the deployment of resources and any other necessary functions. To carry out these functions he was assisted by the Council’s departmental directors and managers (the burgh engineer, the sanitary officer, etc) and Liaison Officers appointed from Central Government departments and other agencies. This team would operate from the District War HQ.

At the District HQ the officers and advisers were assisted by the bare minimum of staff needed to collate initial information on the effect of the attack and prepare plans for the post-attack phase, to operate release procedures, and to advice on any immediate problems arising during the attack itself. The HQ was only intended to be manned during the attack and immediate post-attack phase. It was thought that once radioactivity levels had cleared sufficiently to allow movement the controllers and their staff would return to their normal offices or whatever premises they could find that were still standing and were suitable.

Within the Falkirk Wartime HQ, as at other headquarters, the staff were divided into four sections. a. Operational Section This consisted of three duty controllers nominated by the controller to work in three watches to co-ordinate the work dealing with any problems as they arose, informing the controller as necessary, and supervising communications. They were directly responsible for supervising a team of three narrative recorders who maintained a record of events and decisions, and a team of three message recorders taking, recording and distributing telephone messages. b. Specialist Cells These consisted of designated officers and assistants responsible for the conduct of specific activities. The scientific advisers plotted the radioactivity levels and advised the controller on release procedures. c. Advisers and Liaison Officers These officers were appointed from the Police, Fire Service and other Ministries and Agencies with responsibilities for liaison with the other wartime headquarters and specialist advice. d. Support Staff Telephone switchboard operators working in three watches, two typists, and a domestic staff of a cook and cleaners.

Two Scientific Advisers were allocated to the Falkirk Wartime HQ. These were essentially volunteers with a science background who were trained by and at the expense of the Civil Defence organisation for this task. Taymouth Castle was the main base for such training. In the early 1970s one of these was a teacher in a local school and the second was a chemist at one of the Grangemouth works. During the occupation of the HQ they had Scientific Intelligence Assistants and plotters. The latter were to annotate Perspex screens in front of the wall maps.

The HQ was designed to operate for up to two weeks without the need for the staff to leave the building in case the levels of radioactivity were high - it was for this reason that a three watch system was adopted and food supplies laid in. Personnel were advised to bring one complete change of clothing in case that they were wearing was contaminated by fall-out. They were also to bring sufficient changes of linen, toiletries, and reading material to last for the two weeks.

The HQs were kept on standby and whilst the Civil Defence organisation existed there were regular drills and exercises. After 1968 it devolved entirely onto the local government organisations but lack of funds meant that they were not fully equipped. Latterly this meant that they were simply empty shells with some air filtration plant and telephone equipment. They were to be brought up to requirements during the assumed period of tension using the existing resources of the local authority. Furniture and stores would be decanted from the council offices at Westbank. Lists were drawn up detailing such equipment but, rather amazingly, there do not appear to have been trial runs. As the electric supply was likely to be disrupted and without the availability of sophisticated computer equipment most of the items were low tech and changed little over the years. The surviving list drawn up in the 1970s would not have been much different from that of 1950.

Beyond the confines of the Falkirk Wartime HQ people were allocated the task of co-ordinating the local populace and the available resources, and of passing on intelligence about local conditions to the HQ. They were also able to pass the District Controller’s instructions to the people. Each centre of population in the Falkirk District had a Community Aid Centre with a Community Adviser. These officers were openly appointed and were carefully selected as they might have to lead the survivors through the difficult post-attack period and the legal position of their authority was tenuous. These officers were trained to measure radioactive doses. Council staff from the local area would be answerable to them and communications were to be maintained by the Roads Department. If time allowed, that department’s vehicles were to be dispersed to the Community Aid Centres so that they could be used to carry messages as well as supplies – not every building had phones in those days. By the late 1960s many of these vehicles were fitted with communication radios.

Even radio communication was vulnerable to disruption. Following a nuclear burst an Electro-Magnetic Pulse would generate a high voltage in aerials, overhead telephone cables and power lines, rendering radio and telephone equipment unserviceable. To minimise such disruption all radio equipment was to be switched off and disconnected from the aerials at the warning of an attack. The last resort was to written messages by motor vehicle or bicycle.

In the event of a nuclear attack it was expected that the UK Warning and Monitoring Organisation would be able to issue a four minute warning and the Police warning sirens would sound a wailing note. The firing of three maroons or three blasts of a whistle were to be given by the Police to indicate fall-out danger. A steady note on a siren was for the All Clear – but was of no use when dealing with radiation. The main message to the public was to remain at home. The Falkirk HQ would then assess when it was safe to allow the public to leave their homes and initiate the release procedure system by locality. The Scientific Advisers in the Falkirk HQ plotted information from the Royal Observer Corps, the Police, the Fire Stations and the Community Aid Centres so that an informed decision could be made. Rural areas where livestock might require attention were expected to accept higher levels of radiation.

In these areas any survivors will have been in their own homes. It was readily apparent that the Government could not provide shelters for the vast majority of the population but in the urban areas arrangements were put in place to adapt some structures as Fall-out Shelters during that infamous period of tension. These were only capable of holding up to 2% of the occupants of the immediate area or say a radius of one mile. Buildings were earmarked in only three of the town centres as they were the only ones suitable. However, little or no action was taken in advance to prepare them.

In the supposed three week window before an attack the authorities were supposed to improve the protective factor of these buildings as outlined in the table. They were also to install emergency water tanks to hold 3.5 gallons of water for each person. Fourteen days of food supplies were to be positioned in the buildings by the School Meals Service. Only once authority had been given for the expenditure were emergency boxes to be acquired! These were to consist of a first aid box, a transistor radio and batteries, torches and batteries, plastic bags, disinfectant, and blankets. Once everything was in position shelter wardens would be nominated.

The Glasgow/Clyde area was considered to be a prime target for a nuclear device and with the prevailing south-westerly wind the Falkirk area would receive a high level of fall-out radiation. The mass movement of people was to be avoided if possible. The public were to be informed by leaflets, posters, the press, radio and television to stay put. Local movements would be coordinated from the Regional Headquarters and plans were laid for the care of the homeless by the use of Rest Centres and billeting. It was anticipated that the Falkirk area would have to cope with a large influx of people fleeing from Glasgow. It was therefore important to provide them with such necessities of life as food, drink, sanitation, first aid, clothing and shelter. These were duly allocated on a meagre basis to accommodate a mere 2,600 refugees in the Falkirk district, with further provision in Stirling and elsewhere. The local Social Work and Housing departments were responsible for them. As with the other buildings, these rest centres were to be kitted out in the warning period with 14 days of provisions for the numbers of people shown in Table 5; likewise 3.5 gallons of water; polythene bags and disinfectant; bedding and clothing from the WRVS, the Red Cross and the like. These latter organisations would supplement the Social Work staff to man the centres. Within the rest centres rooms were designated as receptions areas where the homeless were received and registered; dormitories with a minimum space of 2m2 per person; kitchen and eating space; toilet and washing facilities; administration and information points. As soon as the radioactive levels allowed field kitchens were to be constructed on ground adjacent to the buildings.

Each Rest Centre was also to have a first aid post staffed by the Forth Valley Health Board. For radiation victims it was simply a matter of making them as comfortable as possible without using resources which would be better reserved for healthier people. If the centres were swamped authority would be given to requisition hotels and other suitable buildings.

It was essential that the public be kept informed of the local and national situation and to convey instructions to them. Locally, information was to be disseminated either through district information officers or direct by means of loudspeaker vans, broadcasts, or even locally produced newspapers. There was to be a District Information Officer at the Falkirk Wartime HQ – usually the Director of Libraries. He was to be aided by three or so council staff and volunteers drawn from the Falkirk Herald. Down the line, information counters were incorporated into the Community Centres augmented by Information Centres in earmarked premises.

These arrangements duplicated those put in place during the Second World War and appear primitive by modern standards. The fact was that in the event of a nuclear war there was little that the government could do other than to try to ensure that chaos did not ensue. The Civil Defence Corps was disbanded in 1968 and the equipment was either stored in Fauldhouse, handed over to the local authority or sold off. Local government carried the burden of provision for another twenty years or so. In 1983 the Civil Defence (General Local Authority Functions) (Scotland) Regulations were passed which made it a statutory obligation for Scotland’s Regional and Island Authorities to prepare civil defence plans for all possible wartime emergencies. This was largely a paper exercise and the unpreparedness can be seen in what is written above. Eventually even this fell into abeyance and some of the structures were adapted for other purposes but in most instances this was not found possible. Without money to dismantle the physical infrastructure it simply decayed and continues to disappear piecemeal. The Falkirk War HQ was demolished along with the Municipal Chambers in 2022.