WE have all heard of the Big Bang that over 14 billion years ago created the whole universe in which our planet is a tiny speck that due to some highly unusual coincidences and some unusual combinations of materials evolved the world we are living in today.

There are other theories. Millions believe that God created the universe in 4004 B.C. first calculated by Bishop Ussher in the 16th century from adding the presumed ages of all the prophets and leaders in the Bible and working backwards. But which is true I would not presume to judge.

But what perhaps concerns us today perhaps are Big Bangs in our own lifetime. I was 12 years old and the war against Germany was over. I listened to the

8 o'clock news every morning as there was a very exciting war still raging in the Pacific.

The news announced that a new type of bomb had been dropped on Hiroshima, a large Japanese city and totally destroyed it. Like a lot of other people I cheered enthusiastically.

Last week we learnt that on January 23 1961 a mark 39 hydrogen bomb had been accidentally dropped over North Carolina from a B52 bomber that was "breaking up". Each bomb containing 260 times the force of the bomb on Hiroshima, equivalent to four million tons of T.N.T. One of the bombs triggered three of the four switches as it went down on a parachute.

The fourth switch was designed to be triggered by a radar beam from the bomber and mercifully it survived the landing. A firing signal had been sent to the nuclear core on impact but the last flimsy switch saved vast destruction and, depending on the weather, radiation that would engulf Washington, Baltimore, Philadelphia and New York. The other bomb landed in a meadow by Big Daddy's Road in North Carolina.

This was top secret until documents, after declassification, reached the press on September 21.

The American journalist who revealed the near destruction of most of the U.S. East coast was Eric Schloss.

In his book he records 1,250 nuclear accidents, 750 of which are described as "significant". In the 1960s I played a small part in C.N.D in which tens of thousands of British people tried to reverse the Government's nuclear policy without the slightest success.

If this accident in North Carolina had been revealed we may have succeeded.

The most dramatic moment in my life happened when I was seated at my desk in the county education office in Weybridge, Surrey.

I picked up the phone to make an appointment at one of the 450 schools I was required to advise. A loud desperate voice was shouting "May Day, May Day". For a second I thought it was someone playing a record of Tony Hancock's famous sketch The Radio Ham.

Then the shout changed to "Broken Arrow, Broken Arrow". This I knew was the code to be used by pilots in trouble with nuclear devices on board. Then in the background a quieter, calm air-traffic controller was giving instructions to the pilot about a cleared runway. He was calm, clear and decisive. Then silence. This was on extension 60 and it went through the office exchange. I did not tell anybody as I feared they would suggest I make an appointment with the welfare officer.

Then three days later there was a small paragraph in the Guardian about a V bomber that over Manchester had got into difficulties and made a successful emergency landing.

Waging war used to be about imposing the national will on an enemy. Designing nuclear weapons is about seeking obliteration which achieves nothing. Deploying these weapons can lead to accidents of unimaginable consequences

This is a wonderful world. Why do we risk destroying it?

– R. Horsfield, Bream.