30 Facts About Lorna Arnold

Lorna Margaret Arnold was a British historian who wrote several books connected with the British nuclear weapons programmes.

Lorna Arnold was posted to Washington, DC, in November 1946 as part of the British negotiating team that agreed to merge the US and British zones of Allied-occupied Germany into Bizonia, and remained at the Pentagon until 1949.

Lorna Arnold produced histories of the 1957 Windscale fire, the nuclear weapons tests in Australia and the British hydrogen bomb programme.

Lorna Arnold had three younger sisters, Hilary, Rosemary and Ruth, and a younger brother, Geoffrey.

Lorna Arnold's father served in the First World War with the Royal Naval Division and the Royal Navy Air Service.

Lorna Arnold became a vegetarian when she realised at dinner one night that a cow her parents had sold had probably not found a better home.

Lorna Arnold started at the Guildford County School for Girls in September 1927.

Lorna Arnold sat exams for both Reading University and the University of London in 1934, and was offered scholarships by both.

Lorna Arnold opted to enter Bedford College, London, a small women's college of the University of London.

Lorna Arnold studied English, graduating in 1937 with a Bachelor of Arts degree with upper second-class honours.

Lorna Arnold graduated with her teaching certificate, which allowed her to secure a position teaching English at Belper School in 1938.

Lorna Arnold began having fainting spells, and returned to the family's Little Prestwick Farm in 1940.

Lorna Arnold served as part of Army Council secretariat, working for Lieutenant Colonel Alan Mocatta.

Lorna Arnold attempted to get the best possible deal for Britain; whenever possible, purchases were made in sterling, and shipping was with the Cunard Line.

Lorna Arnold continued working at the FPA until three weeks before Geoffrey was born.

Lorna Arnold's health deteriorated after Stephen's birth, and she had a hysterectomy.

Lorna Arnold returned to work, initially in a biscuit factory, and then in a series of clerical jobs.

Lorna Arnold worked on the Veale Committee on Training in Radiation Safety, and, after it wound up, as personal assistant to the director, Andrew MacLean.

In 1967, Lorna Arnold was abruptly reassigned as the UKAEA Records Officer, vice Margaret Gowing, who had published the first volume of the history of the British nuclear weapons programme, Britain and Atomic Energy.

Lorna Arnold was honoured as an Officer of the Order of the British Empire in the 1977 New Year Honours.

Lorna Arnold later produced an updated edition, Britain, Australia and the Bomb: The Nuclear Tests and Their Aftermath in 2005 with Mark Smith from the University of Southampton.

Lorna Arnold returned to working on the hydrogen bomb book, but 1987 was the 30th anniversary of the Windscale accident.

Rather than let the records of the accident and subsequent inquiries be released over several years, Lorna Arnold persuaded the Public Records Office to release them all at once.

In meetings with the various responsible government agencies, the topic of a book about Windscale came up, and Lorna Arnold decided to write one, which became Windscale 1957: Anatomy of a Nuclear Accident in 1992.

The UKAEA Council decided to press on with the project, asking Lorna Arnold to stay on although she was now over seventy years old.

Lorna Arnold loaded her notes into her car and took them home.

Lorna Arnold was a Fellow of the Institute of Physics, a rare accolade for a non-physicist, and was a recipient of an Honorary Fellowship of the Society for Radiological Protection.

Lorna Arnold was introduced to Scilla Elworthy, one of the leaders of the Oxford Research Group, one of the UK's leading advocates for alternatives to global conflict, in the 1980s by her friend, physicist Rudolf Peierls.

Lorna Arnold participated in a series of video presentations on issues of nuclear weapons and nuclear energy for Talkworks, an organisation that focused on dangers associated with nuclear weapons.

Lorna Arnold worked with television productions, including two BBC television documentaries on Windscale in 1990 and 2007, and a six-part documentary The Nuclear Age.