Museum holds the key to Willenhall's nuclear past
The key for a major British nuclear deterrent was made in the Black Country, it has emerged.
Part of the firing mechanism for the Blue Streak intercontinental ballistic missile - with a 2,000 nautical mile range - was made by Century Locks in Willenhall.
Blue Streak rocket was an advanced British missile developed in the late 1950s at the height of the Cold War, designed to carry a nuclear warhead to vaporise a target in the Soviet Union. When the project was cancelled, Blue Streak almost became a space rocket before that idea was also abandoned.
Now the firing mechanism has been donated to the Tettenhall Transport Heritage Centre in Wolverhampton for posterity.
Curator Alec Brew said: "The key looks just like one you would put in your front door - but it was to prevent the button being pressed which would fire the nuclear missile.
"It is a very timely donation which reminds us of a time when turning the key to launch nuclear missiles was an everyday fear."
The Blue Streak rocket would have replaced the V-bombers as the British nuclear deterrent but the scheme was cancelled in favour of the American Skybolt rocket, which had a 5,000 mile range.
When the Americans dropped that, the British were forced to buy Polaris submarine-launched missiles which was subsequently replaced by Trident.
The gift was made by former locksmith Andy Warren who was given the piece of history by a Century Locks employee when he was contracted to work at the Willenhall factory in the late 1980s.
Mr Warren, of Palmers Cross, Wolverhampton, said: "The firing mechanism had been lying in a factory drawer for years when I inherited it, and lay in one of my filing cabinet drawers for nearly another 30 years.
"It's no good to me, and my kids wouldn't know what it was, so it would probably have ended up being binned if I hadn't been for Alec and the heritage centre."
