Maps and Invasions

Does this look familiar?  It is actually an Ordnance Survey map of the Pontefract and Castleford area translated into Russian!

This map is a stark reminder of the Cold War.  Not only did the Soviet forces (as we did) plan for the possibility of “M.A.D,” (Mutually Assured Destruction) using nuclear missiles but also translated our maps for some more conventional form of warfare.  If you follow the rivers from left to right you should be able to work out Pontefract, Castleford and Knottingley by their positions.  The recognisable pattern of the Ferrybridge power station cooling towers must have been considered a useful minor target as would have been the tank factory on the edge of Leeds.

For “oldies” like me, this was all very real.  In 1962, I remember going home for lunch from school to see very grainy black and white television pictures of a blockaded ship during the Cuban Missile Crisis.  I remember thinking that we might all die that afternoon when I was back at my school desk.  On the deck of the ship were long cylinders with a tarpaulin cover …..

Later, just before the collapse of the Soviet Union, an MP proposed stockpiling suicide pills for issue in case of war.  I argued with my then MP who thought this was immoral and unnecessary.

As this map was reprinted by the Soviets in 1982, it shows that all this was not so long ago.

It is ironic that the idea of mapping the country in 1791 by the Ordnance Survey (ie the army) was all done so that we could defend ourselves, village by village, two years after the French Revolution in 1789.  The mapping started in earnest in 1815 after Waterloo … just in case….

Richard Van Riel

Senior Cultural Officer: Pontefract History

4.5.07