Who knew that Scotland's eastern nuclear bunker was beneath farmland just south of St Andrews? No, me neither. We found an advertising leaflet and decided to go.
In its Secret days the bunker was hidden under an apparently unremarkable farmhouse, built in the Fifeshire way. Of course there were no roads then, nor flags, or any of the other recent touristy additions.
As a museum it is slightly lacking rival attractions. It seems to have been put together in something of a hurry, which is a shame. There's a wealth of potential here. Above is the BBC studio from where all post-nuclear messages would have been broadcast.
A good example of the lack of imagination is the mannequins. Terrible. They do seem to be shop dummies with a ridiculous array of badly fitted wigs. Which they are. See the bloke above, supposedly the Local Authorities Chief. Despite the nuclear holocaust he's still managed to smuggle plenty of hair dye into the bunker.
The raw material they have here is fantastic, but poorly presented. The rooms without figures seem to have a more eerie feel to them - here's the Telex room.
"Tuck your shirt in, That Woman! And tie your bloody hair up!" Another set of bad dummies inhabit the RAF Operations room.
The entry price for the bunker is, in my opinion, too high for the exhibits on show. It could be greatly improved with the addition of two or three actors in period costume wandering the concrete corridors offering verbal accounts of life underground.
There's a 150m inclined tunnel to access and exit the bunker itself - here's Sam making a sharp exit (he's no fan of the dummies). This is a fascinating place, and worth a visit if you are ex-military or have an interest in the Cold War period. But I wouldn't recommend it for children.
An SS20 missile, hopefully de-commissioned, reminds visitors why the bunker is here at all.
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