Dounreay: Creating the Nuclear North

Abstract

This article combines the traditionally rural focus of Highland history with the growing field of nuclear culture to examine the impact which Dounreay Experimental Research Establishment had on Caithness between 1953 and 1966. From the outset of the project the United Kingdom Atomic Energy Authority knew that it would have to import specialist technical staff into an area economically driven by agriculture and fishing. This resulted in a distinct form of employment-based migration to the Highlands, reversing population decline in Caithness during the period of study. This article identifies the reasons for, and local reaction to, the UKAEA’s choice of Caithness as the location for its fast breeder reactor establishment. It assesses the significant in-migration to the area during the initial phase of the Dounreay plant’s development, before exploring how perceptions of distance and Caithnessian ‘difference’ affected the recruitment of staff in what the UKAEA considered an ‘unconventional’ location. It puts people and place at the centre of the nuclear project, revealing Dounreay’s role in creating a mid-twentieth century Highland counter-narrative of in-migration and modernity far removed from traditional discourses of depopulation.