Looking back at the Windscale nuclear disaster, 50 years on

Today is the official end of the government's nuclear "consultation" (more on that coming soon). It's also the 50th anniversary of the world's second biggest nuclear disaster - at Windscale, now known as Sellafield, in West Cumbria.

Jean McSorley, a nuclear consultant, has written about the disaster in today's Guardian. It's powerful stuff, so I'm posting an extract here:

"I opened the gag-port and there it was - a fire at the face of the reactor. I thought: 'Oh dear, now we are in a pickle.'" Those were the words of the late Arthur Wilson, the instrument technician who discovered the Windscale fire on October 10 1957, in No 1 of the twin plutonium piles. It signalled the beginning of the world's second biggest nuclear reactor accident.