add heysham visit post

brainsteam/content/posts/2024/10/06-10-24-heysham.md

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+---
+categories:
+  - personal
+date: "2024-10-06 17:33:37"
+draft: false
+tags:
+  - personal
+  - memories
+title: Recalling a visit to a nuclear power plant
+type: posts
+url: /2024/10/06/visiting-heysham-power-station-90s/
+---
+
+I've just started reading [How Infrastructure Works by Deb Chachra](https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B0CC4Q4CJW?_bbid=232957961&tag=bookbubemail-21) which so far I'm enjoying. Very early in the book the author describes her childhood growing up in Toronto and visiting the visitors centre at [Pickering Nuclear Power Plant](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pickering_Nuclear_Generating_Station). This dislodged a memory from my childhood that I wanted to write about for posterity.
+
+In the mid-1990s my grandparents lived in Kendal (where my grandfather was custodian/janitor at [the Museum](https://kendalmuseum.org.uk/)) and during a visit up to them, we went to the public visitors centre at [Heysham Nuclear Power Plant](https://www.edfenergy.com/energy/power-stations/heysham-1). I've always been a nerdy kid so I was very excited to visit a power station and at the time the visitors centre had loads of interactive exhibits for children including something called "the singing kitchen". This was a [disney-its-a-small-world-esque](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xr191FXtOV0) animatronic exhibit where anthropomorphic kitchen appliances like kettles would exalt the benefits of nuclear power generation. Unfortunately I can't find any mention of the exhibit online but, after speaking to my father we're both fairly certain it was real and he's planning to root through some old photo albums to see if he can find any evidence.
+
+I remember sitting in a room with a projector and being shown footage of a test where a train was driven into the side of a nuclear waste containment flask to prove that it would remain in-tact. Younger me found this quite distressing (what's worse to a nerdy, train-obsessed kid than destroying a train).
+
+{{< youtube id="yo22l4wJdx8" >}}
+
+I also remember being led around the power station itself and seeing a big set of manipulator arms through a thick glass window which were used to manipulate "hot" radioactive equipment.
+
+I must have been about 6 or 7 years old at the time of this visit. According to my father, when my school teacher asked the class what we'd been up to that summer I churped up that I had "been investigating nuclear fission", precocious little smart-ass!
+
+### Heysham Nuclear Power Plant in 2024
+
+[Heysham 1](https://www.edfenergy.com/energy/power-stations/heysham-1) and [Heysham-2](https://www.edfenergy.com/energy/power-stations/heysham-2) are still generating power today. They are due to be de-commissioned in 2026 and 2028 respectively. Apparently [you can still visit the public visitors' centre](https://www.visitlancashire.com/things-to-do/edf-heysham-power-stations-visitor-centre-p846010) but only by appointment (I seem to recall just turning up back in the day but perhaps my parents did arrange it ahead-of-time). I imagine that, as of writing, the animatronic kitchen appliances have long been retired.