Radiological Protection Bulletin, No. 226, October 2000 - 4

The NRPB Project

Once upon a time I wrote a piece for the Bulletin, which Roger Clarke the Director spiked. 'Too self-indulgent,' he said, and he was right. Now that I have been in retirement for a while, I hope that he - and the Editor - will indulge me a little in reflecting on some aspects of the first few decades of the NRPB.

Starting

The statute that established NRPB in 1970 is a simple and direct piece of legislative drafting, which has well stood the test of time. It is obvious that the Ministers and officials who devised the policy had a clear idea of what they wished to achieve - a sound basis for protecting people from radiation hazards within the general framework of public health in the UK.

Those founder members of staff who came to Chilton from the MRC Radiological Protection Service unit in suburban London were initially worried about working in the middle of nowhere with people who were more at ease with reactors than radiology. But they came to love the location with the striking prospect of the ancient downland and to respect the dedication to the new enterprise of those who came from the United Kingdom Atomic Energy Authority.

People from both sides had met at the IRPA Congress in Brighton during May 1970. Two memories of the occasion are still vivid: the puzzled reception of Bo Lindell's lecture on the novel topic of optimisation and the formidable performance of Andrew McLean and John Dunster during a vigorous plenary session. Dunster was, of course, to follow McLean as Director. Also there was David Richings, the first Secretary of the Board and the architect of a successful administrative structure. Some delegates were distracted from business by the presence in town of Diana Rigg, the most glamorous actress of the day. During October, when NRPB was inaugurated, the USA, USSR and China exploded nuclear devices within hours of each other. Weapons fallout was to remain an interest for a considerable time.

Developing

In the early years, two main tasks were to establish the credentials of NRPB and build new headquarters. The first was achieved by a burst of national and international activity with a challenging programme of work, a series of new publications, and contributions to the business of ICRP and NEA. The Bulletin and Living with Radiation were begun, as were the Reports, including the first review of population exposure by Geoffrey Webb, later to become Board Secretary after Fred Morley. With the accession of the country to the EEC in 1973, the work of NRPB was defined in important ways. Many members of staff, in their previous jobs, had had good relations with home civil servants; these were now developed in a more formal way. Of considerable significance was the policy of engagement with science and other journalists.

Building the headquarters brought together most members of staff and strengthened the sense of unity. The structure was rather utilitarian in the style of public buildings of the 1970s, but the severe elevation was relieved by a brick sculpture, which many thought of as an Aztec ruin. There were also droll comments on the managerial purpose of the high windowsills. A remarkable event was the installation of the steel room in the low background laboratory: the skill with which Scottish constructors assembled massive six-inch steel plates recovered from a sunken WW1 battleship was unforgettable.

Esprit de corps was nurtured by a series of management courses and conferences. Courses were fun especially if they were based on Harvard Business School material adapted to British circumstances. Conferences, usually held offsite, were more stressful because junior participants felt exposed in a potentially critical environment, but the risks to their future careers were more imagined than real. A feeling of pride in the institution gradually grew.

Some key events

When the history of NRPB is written, the Public Inquiry on the BNFL plan to build a thermal oxide reprocessing plant at Windscale, which ran through the second half of 1977, will be seen as the first occasion on which NRPB became involved in the resolution of a controversial nuclear matter by providing detached scientific evidence. It also led to the strengthening of NRPB expertise on this topic (by recruiting Roger Clarke, for example) - a development that was to prove invaluable for future work at home and in the European Union. As for the conduct of the Inquiry, the clearest memory is of expensive silks being given a run for their money by young environmentalists.

Of all the events in the first few decades, nothing compares with the impact of the Chernobyl accident in the spring of 1986 on the image of NRPB; many called it the Sputnik-Jodrell-Bank effect. Although the radiological consequences for the UK were negligible by comparison with the USSR, press and political interest was intense and public apprehension severe. For a number of reasons, NRPB found itself in the forefront of the national response and members of staff rose to the occasion and satisfied each of its many constituencies. Abiding memories are of Richard Southwood, the new Chairman, supporting the staff when the pressure was at its height and of a charming colleague reassuring a caller that she could safely walk her dog on Hampstead Heath.

Although some may disagree, I believe that the emergence of natural radiation from relative obscurity during Southwood's period in office was also a key development marked most clearly by the Board Statement on radon in homes in the very first of the Documents. He had encountered the topic some years before at the Royal Commission on Environmental Pollution and had written quite recently about it in Nature with Roger Clarke. In the early years of NRPB, studies of radon in mines with HSE had indeed led to voluntary limits on radon exposure, which eventually became law, but high exposures in dwellings created far more concern.

There are many memories of work on natural radiation but room for only one anecdote. During Tony Benn's time as Secretary of State for Energy in the late 1970s, workers at Dounreay wanted to show him how ubiquitous radiation was. And so his officials asked for measurements to be made in the Palace of Westminster. Given such an opportunity, the NRPB team made sure to do so in the most important locations. To this day, members of the team remember that the dose rate at the Prime Minister's seat in the Commons Chamber is only 0.01 µGy h ^-1. They also remember Harold Wilson's wry smile at seeing such goings-on there.

Politics and personalities

NRPB was conceived during the first Wilson period, born under the Heath government, nurtured under Wilson again and Callaghan, strengthened throughout the Thatcher era, weathered the later Major years, and now lives again under a Labour administration. As with many other national organisations, NRPB had to adapt to changing styles of government, the ceaseless demand for efficiencies, and the occasional attention of management consultants. Successive Chairmen and Board Members throughout the early decades ensured that the executive responded appropriately and gave it essential support.

The founding Chairman, Brian Windeyer, was steeped in radiological protection long before he helped to form NRPB. Fred Dainton, who succeeded him, brought a wealth of experience in public sector science to the post and supported NRPB long after his peerage. Richard Southwood was conspicuously attentive to the wellbeing of the organisation throughout his tenure and beyond. Keith Peters, the last Chairman under whom I had the pleasure to serve, valiantly juggled an oppressive medical workload and NRPB obligations. It would be invidious to mention individual Board Members: they were all generous with their time and skills, many remarkably so, a tribute to the appointments procedure.

Visits by politicians, whether in or out of ministerial office, were always exciting for members of staff - and also occasions of anxiety for those who had to perform. Among the early visitors who came to Chilton were Peter Shore, Patrick Jenkin, Shirley Williams, Edward Heath and Norman Lamont, all still in politics. Later on, there was a line of Environment Ministers who dealt with radon, including William Waldegrave, Colin Moynihan, Virginia Bottomley, Lord Strathclyde and Angela Eagle. And in more recent years, the Chairman and Director had to meet the Health Minister in office for an annual accountability review.

From the earliest days, NRPB had interacted with many government departments as well as its sponsor, the Department of Health. Fortunately for the outcome, the interlocutors in London - and in Edinburgh, Cardiff and Belfast - were well versed in the discipline and discriminating customers for advice and assistance. The same went for HSE. There were many occasions of shared pleasure at the resolution of awkward dilemmas and the completion of important initiatives such as environmental and epidemiological studies.

External relations

Relations with European Commission officials were also productive; even before Edward Heath signed the Treaty of Accession in 1973, they drew members of staff into collaboration with mainland institutions. Throughout the subsequent decades, NRPB came to play a most important role in the pursuit of radiological protection in an expanding European Union. Hard-pressed officials welcomed the support that NRPB could supply, and relations with sister organisations in the other member states were always cordial and productive. Discourse with other nationals was a delight, especially because of the genuine camaraderie, the varieties of English used, and the captivating accents. In later years, there was much teasing of the French, who had to comply with the Toubon language law when on official duty.

International relations extended beyond Europe, of course, mainly through ICRP and the UN but also bilaterally. From the very beginning of radiological protection during the interwar years, the Americans had been leading practitioners and strongly developed health physics after WW2. There had always been a special relationship - so to say - between the USA and the UK in the discipline, and successive Directors reforged the link. Commonwealth connections, especially with Australia and Canada on matters such as safety in uranium mining and protection against ultraviolet radiation, were also developed. Beneficial relations were established with the Japanese professionals attending the bomb survivors, who are profoundly important to the study of the harmful effects of ionising radiation. It had always seemed to me most extraordinary that those engaged in the development of protection standards could overcome so many political and cultural differences to develop a consensus on the way to manage a problem that had social as well as technical elements.

On the whole, NRPB had a good press. Since protecting people from radiation hazards was its job, and since it was straight with journalists from the start, any other outcome would have been disappointing. Many science journalists, both in the written and broadcast media, had a special interest in radiation matters and would go to considerable lengths to get the balance of a story right. It never ceased to amaze members of staff struggling with report writing how these journalists could turn out so much material so quickly - and with proper words in proper places. For young journalists starting out with a local paper or radio station, however, radiation stories - with terms such as caesium, sieverts, and statistical significance to be assimilated in a rush - must have been a nightmare.

Tribute

NRPB vibrates in the memory of those who have served in it for any appreciable length of time. Radiological protection is an extraordinarily varied and important discipline: there may be no other organisation in the advanced world that practises so much of it so coherently. The esprit de corps cultivated in the founding cohort passed to succeeding intakes of staff. I am sure that the institution and its spirit will last.

Michael O'Riordan
National Radiological Protection Board
1970-97