Just to add to the spookiness, mobile phones get no reception. They all clock on together, and don't start work until they're all on site. We're kitted out with gloves and fleeces before we go in, and have to go through an air lock to stop the, er, 'warm' February air outside coming in.įour people work at the unit, and they're each wired up to a walkie-talkie system so that they know where everyone is at all times. Scientists have worked out that the optimum temperature at which old nitrate should be stored is -5C, and the new building is essentially a giant freezer. But as anyone who has ever put a Kodak roll in the fridge will know, the best way to store film is somewhere really cold. They knocked up a series of Nissen huts which, with the concrete bunkers, were a suitably secret and cool place to store it all. The BFI has actually owned this site since the late 1970s, when the MoD decided they no longer needed to store their weapons here.
It would be a national disaster, not to mention a minor embarrassment. One stray fag end and more than 100 years of British culture could go woomph. Which helps explain the secrecy: the BFI doesn't want anyone anywhere near this place, because the stock's so damn flammable.
