September 06, 2007
Suffolk hauntology, again
'Marxist Supernanny' is on its way... but I've a few deadlines and I've also been working on a sound piece that is a sort of follow-up to londonunderlondon, a hauntological remix of the Bawdsey radar oral history, which I'm producing for the event celebrating seventieth anniversary of the establishment of Bawdsey as a fully operational base in 1937. Everyone knows about Bletchley Park, but Bawdsey was equally if not more significant in the history of WWII and the subsequent development of cyberspace. Radar - operated primarily by women, of course - was crucial to the RAF's victory in the battle of Britain.
On September 15th, Bawdsey Manor, bought by the Air Ministry in 1936, but now, sadly, back in private hands, will be open to the public for the first time in years. If only the whole ex-RAF site - the imposing manor, with its grottoes and secret gardens, the concrete transmitter block, the Ballardian Cold War zone (now left mouldering and un-used) - could be acquired by English Heritage...
