The remembrance of things past

 For Proust it was tea and a madeleine that set off a train of memories, but for me it was finding a handful of  protest buttons from my student days, while looking for an old notebook...

Buttons protesting the building of Torness nuclear power plant in the seventies

Scotland already had a substantial investment in nuclear power by the 1970s, and in the wake of the 1973 oil crisis, it was decided to build an additional plant in East Lothian, not particularly far from Edinburgh. 

At the time, almost no one appreciated the implication of the discovery of substantial oil and gas reserves under the North Sea, which changed the energy profile substantially with gas powered plants which were cheaper to build replacing  older oil fired plants and lessening a dependence on coal.

I, like a lot of people, felt we should invest more in energy conservation and move away from what was then essentially a dirty polluting coal powered nineteenth century style economy.

It didn't happen, but we did move to a less polluting economy courtesy of Margaret Thatcher shutting down most of heavy industry and almost by accident, reducing the impact of acid rain on Scandinavia.

Strangely Torness is now the last remaining working nuclear power plant in Scotland and due to close in 2028.

I also used to have a classic 'Nuclear Power No Thanks' button as well as a sticker on the tailgate of my Renault 4, but both the button and photographs from then seem to have disappeared, almost certainly lost in a move.

When I moved to Wales in the 1980s it was the time of the anti US cruise missile protests, and we were more concerned about nuclear war - to be truthful I always had been, and even more so at university where you could see air force Lightnings practising for Armageddon with repeated scrambles and pretend intercepts.

Bilingual Welsh/English peace button

But of course, it was always important to maintain a sense of humour about they way things were

enough said!