I READ with interest in the ‘Andover Remembers’ piece regarding the loss of HMS Bulwark and Alfred Harris.

I remember passing the ‘wreck buoys’ off the Isle of Grain BP refinery marking her resting place on sailing trips down the River Medway, in the 1960s.

The Bulwark, however, was cut up and removed in the mid 1970s. I remember seeing the mangled iron near No. 9 dry dock at Chatham Dockyard.

Most of her iron went for scrap, but some special pieces are now resting in a shielded environment in laboratories.

Steelwork from around post World War I, was on occasions non-destructively tested using X-rays.

The radioactive dose absorbed by steel lingered beyond its scrapping and resmelting, after which it was liable to be X-rayed again.

By 1960, what with manmade nuclear activity and constant non-destructive Xray testing, it was assessed that steel may eventually be too radioactive to use.

The practice of X-raying steel is now necessarily less routine, and as the steel from HMS Bulwark could be certified as never having been X-rayed, and the underwater environment of its former resting place had shielded the steel from atmospheric radiation, it serves as a benchmark to any general increase in the radioactive signature of the steel and iron we use today.

Thus a precious piece of Private Alfred Harris’ old ship goes on to serve as a measure against which we can assess our safety from radiation in the commodities of steel and iron.

Some pieces of steel from German ships of their grand fleet, which were scuttled at Scapa Flow, also serve the same purpose.

Rick Pond, St Birstan Gardens, Andover