The BBC religious programme "Songs of Praise" came from the Trident base on Sunday 11th January and was a collage of images of hymn singing from a Helensburgh church and of nuclear submarines. Many Christians were outraged about the programme. Even before it went on air Rev Maxwell Craig, General Secretary of Action of Churches Together in Scotland, called for the programme to be dropped. He said that the programme would "stick a Christian cross in weapons designed to kill a million people at a time".
When local people in Helensburgh were invited to the recording of hymns from the West Church before Christmas they were not told that this was associatedwith the Navy and some were angry to find out that they were taking part in apublic relations exercise for the Navy.
"Calling down God's blessing on our willingness to slaughter untold millions of our fellow human beings is a blasphemous charade".
said Brian Quail, Joint Secretary, Scottish Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament.
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A Song Of Praise
Oh, hear us when we cry to thee
For those in peril from the sea
From death by violent fire and quakes
That meet us when our Kraken wakes,
Those sleek and monstrous metal toys
Guided beneath by pale faced boys
Who now with face angelic sing
Their sweet Hosannas to you, King,
While puzzled folk throughout the land
Wonder on what side You stand.
David McKenzie
Trident images used in the programme
In between the hymn singing there were many images of Trident nuclear submarines. Almost all of these were taken from a BBC documentary which was shown in 1996 as part of a series called Defence of the Realm. The documentary followed the Trident submarine HMS Victorious over 6 months as it prepared and rehearsed for its nuclear role.
In Songs of Praise one of the initial submarine shots was of HMS Victorious inside the explosives handling jetty at Coulport taken at the time nuclear weapons were being loaded onto the vessel in December 1995.
Songs of Praise interviewed Commander Phillips who I believe is Captain of the Port crew on HMS Victorious although this was not made clear. During this interview images were used of the missile control room on HMS Victorious during the test firing of a Trident missile in July 1995. In one of these clips the original soundtrack in Defence of the Realm has the command "permission to fire" being issued. This was dubbed over in Songs of Praise. Later in the programme during the interview with a chaplain there are shots of the missile actually being fired from the submarine.
At the end of the programme a chaplain gave the blessing "prosper their labour with good success". The images shown during the blessing were of HMS Victorious carrying out preparations in readiness for going out on a nuclear armed patrol.
The overall visual message conveyed by the programme was that the Christian church endorses nuclear weapons. This was clearly erroneous.