Essex Book Festival, Pennant 764

13. Ballistic Building

The Ballistic Building has views that stretch from one end of Suffolk to the nuclear power station at Sizewell. You can look out to Europe, you can watch the seals binge watching box sets of waves as they beach on the shingle. The Ballistic Building was not built for the stunning views but to test bombs. Ballistic is an adjective, the flight of an object through space. It is also possible to ‘go ballistic’ which is, presumably, to behave in an explosive manner. It is here that they did everything possible to annoy bombs. They threw them at walls, fired them, shook them, rattled them, span them. Anything that you can think of that might make a bomb go ‘ballistic’ was done. Anything short of exploding them.

A quick internet search explains that: - ‘the usage derives from the second generation of jet fighters, armed with guided missiles, with the informal military sense of fully-powered non-ballistic missiles going ballistic when losing control and assuming a free-fall trajectory.

Wouldn’t it just be heaven if all of those brains and determination and courage were used for a force for good instead of throwing bombs at buildings in preparation for throwing them at families, crops and animals. At real life. I struggle to imagine why anyone would want to make a bomb, let alone start playing ballistics with it. At least you can see the seals though. That feels like the opposite of Ballistic. Once you have made a bomb, do you just sit down and have a cup of tea? Go home and eat jacket potato and tut at all the bad news on the telly. Stroke the dog and sigh at the strain of another hard day’s work, throwing bombs at the Ballistic Building. Did anyone ever think ‘I hope this bomb doesn’t land on a family.’ Did any of them ever imagine a world without bombs, where the only reason for going ballistic is because you’ve got a flat tyre on your bicycle and you have to walk instead of cycle home from the pub.

The Ballistic Building makes me sad but, at least you can see the seals.