The Crises - Part Three. The vexed question of Scottish independence wasn't decided by the referendum of 2014: Far from it. Despite the narrow vote in favour of remaining part of the United Kingdom there remained a large, disaffected minority who felt London and the unionists had skewed the debate by fearmongering; aided by the overbearing, partisan coverage from the BBC; as well as a duplicitous promise of greater automony as a reward for voting No, and this in addition to seeding the ground in advance of the vote with a proportionately larger share of public spending grants in an attempt to bolster pro-unionist opinion than would have otherwise been the case had there not been a separatist campaign.

After the 2015 general election resulted in another austerity government the nationalist campaign was reignited when the new Westminster administration renegued on the promised devolution, and as part of yet another round of cutbacks clawed back much of the 'over generous' financial settlement they had earlier awarded to Scotland. The Scottish people, realising they'd been duped, took out their dissatisfaction on both the unionist parties and the established independence movement, which had by then splintered into squabbling factionalism. The unionists in both Edinburgh and London watched with wry amusement but events soon wiped the smirks from their faces.

A renewed and far more militant secessionist movement arose from the ashes; it was determined to win at any cost. Adopting the strategy of the IRA - the gun and bomb in one hand, and the ballot box in the other - it embarked on a dual campaign of political agitation and low-level terrorism. They were careful enough not to get caught most of the time; and as the new wave of vindictive social policies bit ever more deeply, their political wing gained support.

Rather than plead for the Westminster government to hold another referendum - which they never would, having had one so recently and considering the matter to have been decided for good - the Pairtidh Nodha Alba organised a grassroots plebiscite of their own. The mainstream unionists and nationalists urged a boycott of the vote, but still a sizeable proportion of the electorate participated. Again the result was a almost evenly divided impasse.

The unionists claimed the referendum was irrelevant; its organisation flawed, and counting suspect. Even so it was verified by an independent supervisory body composed of international observers that 45% of the self-selected electorate had voted for independence; 48% against; with the remaining 7% spoiling their ballots in protest at the behest of some unionist organisations. Despite the result it appeared the secessionist movement had stalled; there seemed to be no way of making any further progress. Barring an unexpected development it seemed things would remain as they were for the foreseeable future.

As with much recent history the exact details of how it happened are either suppressed or will remain untold. What we do know is some of the more extreme elements of the new nationalist leadership were introduced to people who could 'arrange' for their ideal to be made a reality.

Whether the NuNats realised they were knowingly dealing with the representatives of an opportunistic alliance of organised international criminals, aided by the Democratic Peoples' Republic of Korea, or were naive dupes is open to question. But whatever their motives they were made - and accepted - an offer they couldn't refuse.

As a result of the agreement the unobtrusive preparations began. Not every container entering the UK could be checked and searched; and if drugs and people could be so easily trafficked, then so could the weaponry and personnel needed for a seizure of power. Even with the latest 'security' features embedded in passports there were many easy ways to get hold of valid travel documents; and with more ethnic Chinese people entering the UK to study, or on business, it was easy for the North Korean special forces and soldiers of fortune from around the world to infiltrate unnoticed.

With law and order unravelling in the UK just before the Secession there were plenty of 'security contractors' entering on short-term work visas; and as they were in such demand applications for such visas were fast-tracked with little scrutiny paid to them. Those people whose skills were deemed essential for the operation but considered too much of a risk to use conventional transport and means of entry to the UK were smuggled in by other means.

In any case the law enforcement and intelligence services had their hands full coping with our own little local difficulty. The long-postponed class war had finally erupted.

The latest in the seemingly never ending round of social security cuts had pushed some sections of the sullen underclass beyond their breaking point. Faced with a hopeless future with nothing but indefinite privation and mistreatment to look forward to, perilously impoverished people finding themselves under attack by their own government were driven to perform desperate acts in self-defence.

Their seething anger could no longer be contained and erupted on to the streets, but in addition to the usual rioting they realised they had to think beyond disorganised looting in their struggle to survive. There was no point in assembling in large groups and providing easy targets for kettling, mass arrests, tear gas, water cannon or baton rounds. Instead, dispersed but acting coherently, they would take active measures to combat those organisations which were making their lives hell.

The Job Centres were the first targets on their lists. For too long they had regarded unemployed people as state chattels, to be forced to run non-stop in hamster wheels of conditionality, and bullied under the threat of benefit sanctions into ever more onerous activities just to continue to receive what they were rightfully entitled to.

Sick of being society's scapegoats to be objectified for continual official harassment; having their noses regularly rubbed in the dirt because it amused the multi-millionaire ruling class to see them abused, the jobless, being the most adversely affected, struck back with the greatest force against their tormenters. The administrative systems used by the DWP to bear down on their subjects came under concerted frazzling attacks, and the Job Centres were torched or trashed; as happened to the premises of any organisations who collaborated with the degrading 'work for your dole' forced labour schemes the government were still intent on trying to impose on the long-term unemployed.

Soon to follow were the housing associations when they complied with court eviction orders which imposed homelessness as a collective punishment on the families of convicted rioters. The courts, local authorities, and anyone associated with them were fair game; but they remained for the most part secure behind sandbagged emplacements and constant patrols. Instead the insurgents targeted those they could more easily reach: The local authority enforcement officers, community police and wardens; bailiffs, social workers, employees of the private companies that made random alcohol and drug tests on benefit claimants, or monitored the electronic tags fitted to them so their movements could be checked: Anyone who represented Them and who needed to work in the field became an endangered species; only able to travel and work under guard, subject to the constant threat of attack, their school age children at risk of being bullied and beaten-up by their fellow pupils.

Then the mobs directed their anger against the medical examination companies involved in harassing disabled people off benefit by moving the goal posts as to how their disability was assessed. After their evaluation centres were ransacked and threats made against their staff, the leading company involved suspended its contract with the government until it was given assurances about its security: Assurances that the government and a stretched to breaking point police force had a difficult time guaranteeing.

No matter how well their buildings were guarded the people who worked in them couldn't be shadowed all of the time. Their protection was stretched even more thinly when they were away from work, and so they became the targets of intimidation and severe assaults. Despite the extra private security personnel deployed to protect them, the staff involved in the persecution of the poor lived with the ever-present fear of molotov cocktail attacks on their homes; drive-by shootings; even kidnapping, kneecapping, or other mutilations of themselves and family members. If you were on the wrong side of the class war, it could come right to your door and become unpleasantly personal. You too might find yourself experiencing the realities of living with a permanent, life-changing disability: Something a middle-market tabloid columnist discovered to her cost.

For many years Lois Merck's snide sniping had inflamed resentment against the disadvantaged sections of society. Her payback came late one night soon after the publication of one of her most outspoken columns yet; in which she accused disabled people of hamming it up at their medical assessments. She alleged they were making too much of an issue of their handicaps; and claimed with the right attitude any disability could be overcome. She was soon to put her beliefs to a practical test.

After tracing her address a masked group burst into her home; shooting and seriously injuring her husband when he tried to resist them, then silencing her screaming with a jaw-breaking punch. She was thrown face down on her bed, her flailing limbs held fast by strong arms, before particular care was taken to pound a hatchet blade with a lump hammer deep into her lower back. Her legs stopped thrashing for good when her spinal cord was severed; permanently paralysing her lower body. The raiders disappeared back into the night as quickly as they had come, taking nothing else except her ability. This was the first publicly acknowledged instance of a 'flidding'. Soon these attacks would become far more common.

It was an indication of how divided the nation had become that while many people were appalled by the attack, just as many thought the bitch had got what she deserved. The incident marked the end of her journalistic career; she was too traumatised to write another column.

Betrayed by a political establishment who regarded them as only a 'problem' that needed to be dealt with harshly and a drain on society; the poor sought their protection and alternative forms of social security from an unlikely coalition of street gangs, anarchist groups, and the criminal underworld. Together they set about 'liberating' first the ghetto estates, and then other areas of the inner cities from the heavy hand of the authorities. They dismantled state control by vandalising as many of the CCTV cameras that they were able to get at, and remotely frazzling the surveillance networks or drones that they couldn't physically reach; then they saw off any police patrols who dared to enter their domain. What had initially began as a slow-burning, sporadic insurgency spread and gathered momentum, claiming more areas as its own. People of all races and religions put aside their differences for the time being and united against the state which had declared war against them.

Though there was no organised revolutionary leadership the disparate groups were united by a common belief that the government had gone too far; and believing that none of the existing political parties offered any hope, they would have to stop waiting for a change for the better which would never come. Instead they would rip power from the state's grasp and make it their own. From now on any area they could control would become the peoples' space; subject to their law, their order, their form of social support. Their patience had snapped, the line had been crossed, and things would never be the same again because they'd had enough. Enough of ineffectual protests; enough of being ignored by the corrupt politicians who were supposed to represent them; enough of being demonised; enough of being treated like the scum of the earth: They were never going to endure it again. The government had done fuck-all for them apart from fucking them over so it could go and fuck itself.

The North Korean backers of the NuNat coup delighted in providing aid to the seditious groups; they would be a useful diversion, and preoccupy forces which London might otherwise deploy against them.

Emboldened by their initial successes the insurgents sallied forth from their home areas and out onto the offensive. Special units raided the modern workhouses in which 'problem' families had been incarcerated; freeing the inmates, leaving the institutions burning and the guards grievously beaten. Prisons though proved harder to break into.

Then they spread terror through the wealthier suburbs, where those who planned, supported, and profited from the War Against The Poor were most likely to be found. Pursued with the same determination they applied in persecuting their quarry, the wealthy found themselves subject to revenge attacks of robbery and arson. Sometimes there was no motive; just flaunting your affluence in the face of mass poverty was reason enough.

In response the richer neighbourhoods organised themselves into defensive vigilante groups. They set up roadblocks, bought more physical security products and hired more guards. Though with security in such high demand the costs spiraled, and the quality of the personnel available began to fall. When push came to shove many of them just weren't up to the job.

The right-wing vigilante militias which sprang up in response to the revolution offered their services for hire and did well for a time. Then they became overconfident and decided to take the fight to their enemy. It was a mistake they only made twice; each time suffering heavy losses. Instead they reverted to snatching and 'disappearing' the occasional suspected rebel, and were repaid by the insurgents in the same coin. The police and army knew full well what was going on, but turned a blind eye.

The situation steadily deteriorated. Despite the locally declared States of Emergency and Martial Law; the preventive arrests and indefinite internment without charge; in spite of the limited Military Assistance to the Civil Power rendered by the army in the worst trouble spots, the UK seemed set to follow the inexorable road to a balkanized civil war and indefinite misery which so many other nations had travelled before. While there were continuing calls for a declaration of a nationwide State of Emergency and an intensification of the repressive powers available, the government was reluctant to act; fearing it would be a public admission of their incompetence in preventing the social breakdown; and the final nudge down the irreversible slide into total anarchy.

As politicians claimed they were making steady progress in re-establishing the rule of law, flash mobs robbed and burned supermarkets, banks, building societies, bookmakers, and moneylenders. Then they retrieved their own or someone else's pledges from the predatory high street pawnbrokers, before vanishing as quickly as they arrived: They were long gone before the struggling police had any hope of responding.

In any case the police had enough on their plate defending their stations when they came under sustained attack: First with petrol bombs, then with guns and grenades, finally with car bombs and home-made mortars. They were forced to patrol in fours for their own safety, armed with 'less lethal' weapons; then fully armed in armoured vehicles.

When a low-flying police helicopter was shot down by sniper fire, killing all on board, it was reluctantly accepted that every military resource available had to be mobilised in an all-out effort to deal with the insurgency once and for al. The last available units of the overstretched army were withdrawn from their 'peacekeeping' mission to support the Pakistani government and returned home for 'public order' duties.

But the tactics which had stalemated them in Iraq, Afghanistan, and now Pakistan followed them home. Every wannabe urban guerrilla knew how to successfully drain the resolve of an occupying force, bit by bit, until it was exhausted. The army could conduct joint patrols with the police, and for a while impose its control upon an area with lockdowns, checkpoints and raids. But the control came at a heavy human and material cost to all sides in the conflict. The military couldn't address or resolve the underlying reasons for the conflict; only impose a temporary, brutal, pause.

Even that couldn't last. The insurgents were smart and flexible, changing their targets and campaigns. They became fluid and savvy to the counter-insurgency methods used against them: They were difficult to catch; hardened, trained and experienced. They didn't fall into the trap of defending limited areas which could be blockaded into submission by cutting off food, water and power supplies: Instead their invisible control ebbed and flowed with the ever-changing situation on the streets. A martial lid may have been clamped on to the ongoing civil war but despite the harsh emergency measures the insurgency still simmered and constantly threatened to blow out of control.

With their hands full just coping with the English insurgency it was understandable how the intelligence services missed the preparations for the Scottish secession; especially as it was organised so professionally. If anyone thought about Scotland it was with relief that the class war hadn't taken hold there to the same extent it had in the rest of England and Wales. Things had calmed there for the moment; perhaps the NuNats had realised they could never hope to win and given up on or at least suspended their campaign for now.

We'll probably never know if anyone wondered if it was too damn quiet; or for how long the relative calm could continue. If only the spooks hadn't wasted their time and resources in the past regarding innocent people and peaceful protesters as potential threats to national security; if only they hadn't been so overwhelmed just coping with the English insurgency, someone could have conducted a more thorough investigation into the ways the English rebels were being supplied with their materiel.

They might have considered more carefully who it was arming the insurgents, and what they stood to gain by doing so, rather than getting sidetracked into reactive fire fighting. They might even have struck lucky and by chance discovered the arms pipeline from Scotland, then followed it back to its source. But they didn't. They missed the greatest ever threat to national security, and even if they had understood what was about to happen it may have been too late to stop the inevitable.

The Crises - Part Four. I was on holiday when it happened. Back then a holiday abroad was still reasonably affordable, although the costs had started their rapid rise to the prohibitive levels of today. I needed a quick and very dirty break away from my then job of editing a series of professional journal web sites, so Karen and I were spending a week in the south of France.

After a day in Nice we'd just decided to go to bed after a pleasant evening meal. If only I'd not flicked on the room terminal while Kaz was in the bathroom we might have spent a final night in blissful ignorance. But I did, and was astonished to see the international news channels all carrying unconfirmed reports about some sort of attack or insurrection to do with the Scottish parliament building in Edinburgh, with a nationalist Council announcing the dismissal of the Assembly and proclaiming itself to be in power. More details would follow as they became known, but in the meantime uninformed speculation padded the breaking story.

We were both shocked, but neither of us thought that the secessionists stood a hope in hell of succeeding. The police would soon break into Holyrood and turf them out, or the army would be sent in. We watched rapt through the night as the scale of the takeover, and further reports of seemingly well-trained, powerful squads of mercenaries taking over strategic points emerged. There was no hope of sleep now so we kept up with events as much as we could.

A special late-night session of Parliament was called at short notice. The Prime Minister - breaking for a moment from chairing the Cobra emergency committee - declared the forcible seizure of Scotland would never be tolerated, and if the terrorists didn't surrender immediately the armed forces would crush the plot by force if necessary. To thunderous jeers the timid Leader of the Opposition found his voice and asked exactly where the government was going to find the forces to perform that mission, given the army was fully committed 'supporting' the police in England. There were cheers and uproar when a rabidly right wing Tory moved the death penalty be restored for treason; he proposed emergency legislation to that effect, calling for the House to immediately approve it by acclamation. The Speaker ruled him out of order and suspended the sitting for half an hour.

Breathless rumours swamped the rolling news streams. Two MSPs had been killed trying to resist the storming of the building. The mercenaries had surrendered. The plotters had pledged to die fighting if necessary. The SAS had been sent in. Quick reaction army units were flying north, and the RAF would obliterate any NuNat strong points if required. Leading Scottish politicians and public figures had been assassinated, kidnapped, or imprisoned; or were under house arrest. There were reports of fighting in military bases and the Faslane naval dockyard. There had been demonstrations both for and against the coup, with fatalities when the opposing factions clashed. Some of the rumours were frankly ridiculous, such as the one the usurpers were threatening a nuclear strike on London unless the UK government withdrew its forces and recognised the legitimacy of the new regime. Far away in a budget hotel bedroom we watched the Clauswitzian fog of war descending over the story.

As the night wore on the tone of the reports changed. It was most noticeable on the BBC which gradually stopped broadcasting breaking news and live studio or phone interviews with experts or witnesses. Instead it started repeating loops of the government speeches in the raucous parliamentary debate; adding little in the way of new updates or reportage. Feeling I wasn't being informed I switched to the other channels to find them announcing that due to the emergency reporting restrictions imposed by the British government they were moving their coverage of the Scottish crisis to their offices in Dublin, Paris, and Brussels; where the EU Council of Ministers would convene to discuss the issue shortly.

This was the moment for me when the BBC's reputation was sullied beyond redemption. The various Broadcasting Acts had always specified during times of emergency the duty to report accurately and impartially was to be set aside; they made provision for the direct state control of the media. Anyone with half a brain who had watched the news bulletins for the past decades couldn't have failed to notice how year by year the news had become less informative, more dumbed-down, and subtly more supportive of whichever government was in power. Over time, many people had come to regard the BBC as little more than a government news agency.

Thanks to the 'unique way it is funded' by a poll tax on viewers, the BBC had always felt under Scrutiny from governments of all parties to justify its licence fee. This in turn made the corporation susceptible to political duress; a pressure which intensified from the mid-noughties onward following the well-publicised scandals the corporation had become embroiled in. Once the political class had the Beeb on the defensive they used their advantage to compromise its notional independence as much as possible.

The law's reserve powers applied equally to all broadcasters operating in the UK, but the craven way in which the BBC was so eager to curry favour by complying with the act before being forced to, and the way it finally gave up the pretence of not being a state mouthpiece - adopting the uncritically deferential tone it usually reserved for anything to do with royalty - was sickening; especially now of all times, when there was a desperate hunger for news of what was happening.

The censorship extended beyond the native broadcasters. Reporters inside and outside of the UK encountered problems of sudden internet blocking and loss of service. Making phone calls to and within the UK became problematic; partly due the volume of calls overloading the available capacity, as well as the mobile networks being restricted by both Westminster and the Albans, as the rebels began to call themselves, to hinder 'the enemy' from communicating.

In place of absent facts the rumours became more credible. Cars with Scottish number plates were prohibited from travelling; their occupants subject to summary arrest at ANPR road checks (as if Scots with evil intent couldn't have hired or stolen a car with English plates in advance!) There were reports of refugee convoys fleeing south from the major Scottish cities at speed. All air, rail, and road links with Scotland were suspended. Anyone with a Scottish accent in England was advised to keep a low profile or surrender themselves to protective police custody. A ginger-haired man with a Scottish accent had been kicked to death in Hackney. The Westminster government again denied receiving a nuclear ultimatum from the Albans. The London transport system was apparently in chaos as a result of real or imagined bomb threats which may or may not be second front attacks by Alban sympathisers. A broken down lorry on the Edgeware Road had prompted a precautionary evacuation of nearby areas. The French authorities were to require UK nationals living or on holiday in France to register themselves with the local Gendarmerie, or their hotel management.

Just as we heard that report there was a polite knock at our door. It was the apologetic hotel receptionist with our freshly printed forms and a cover letter from the Ministère de l'Intérieur regretting the inconvenience, but politely requiring we register ourselves in case we were to need assistance in the future; and to inform the authorities of our destination should we decide to move on. An online link for registering had just gone live, so we did so electronically. Suddenly it sunk in; we could be trapped out here, unwilling refugees for the duration of this crisis. There were worse places to be stuck, but for how long could we stretch our finances if we were forced to stay here?

The French government must have been remarkably prescient because soon after it was announced from London and Paris that all international air, Chunnel, and ferry services to the UK were suspended until further notice. Regular updates on the travel situation were promised but failed to materialise. The hairs on my neck began to rise: Something must be very wrong back in Blighty. Why should an outbreak of fighting, however serious it may be, hundreds of kilometres north of London lead to a transport shutdown of services to southern England? In the news vacuum of the UK something more serious than we were led to believe must be going on.

As dawn broke a further trickle of news and hearsay began to emerge as more people discovered ways to circumvent the online censorship. A lot of information could be gleaned from blogs, blurts, and social media but due to the high demand for these services they were running frustratingly slowly. Instant blurt spaces appeared relaying eyewitness reports and spliced CCTV feeds of the ongoing fighting, but they rarely stayed live for long, as the Albans obviously had a unit dedicated to tracing them and shutting them down either remotely or physically: Violently so by the looks of some of the last live images 'cast before they went offline.

Yet more rumours: The government was meeting in a continuous emergency session. And this unreported on the UK news, but carried by the international feeds: The British government had activated its Emergency War Plan, with second-tier ministers and members of the Royal family being evacuated out of London and dispersed to Regional Seats of Government. In a statement downplaying the move we were informed it was purely a precaution; a decades old contingency plan automatically set in motion, and no conclusions should be read into it. I doubted if many people were reassured. Westminster sources also claimed the situation was bound to be resolved in the next few hours. A twelve hour nationwide curfew was announced to come into force at 18.00 hours tonight, and subsequent nights until further notice: To allow the army to move freely about the Essential Service Routes, and ensure public order was maintained at this difficult time.

Less than a day of sleepless hours had passed since news of the coup broke; but as the crisis continued my sense of foreboding increased.

Another headline flashed across the bottom of the screen while the picture panned across airport floors of camped out stranded tourists: The French Direction de la Défense de la Sécurité Civile had been placed on Alert Orange. Then the programme cut to a live test transmission on French TV from the Réseau national d'alerte explaining what people should do in the event of nuclear contamination being detected in France. What the fuck was going on?

The log jam of information broke again. There had been an inadvertent massacre when a column of refugees heading south had met the army heading north, and been mistaken for Alban rebels believed to be heading for Berwick-upon-Tweed. Apache helicopters had attacked and destroyed an Alban unit attempting to establish a border checkpoint. The newly constructed extensions to the detention camps on the bleak northern moors, planned to incarcerate the latest wave of insurgency prisoners would instead be housing displaced people in those bare wooden huts. The Albans had begun broadcasting using captured radio stations in addition to their online presence, and warned unless the Westminster occupiers stopped attacking the Alban freedom fighters within the hour they would suffer "extreme consequences". A group of ninjas had taken over the Sullom Voe oil terminal and booby-trapped it; ready to be destroyed on command from Edinburgh or if there were any attempt by special forces to recapture it. London was in constant consultation with our US and Union Treaty Organisation allies. The Prime Minister had been summoned to Buckingham Palace for urgent talks with His Majesty...

Then everything changed.

The first the international audience knew of it was from a small Dutch fishing boat. As soon as news of the putsch broke an enterprising Nederlandse Publieke Omroep news personality named Babette Veldjans, expecting travel to the UK would be restricted, decided it would be a good idea to charter a trawler to sail across the North Sea to an east coast English port. Captain Van Oort; master of the Vermeermin - at that moment fishing mid-way between the Netherlands and the UK in the southern North Sea - was only too pleased to accept the satphoned offer. With the state of fishing the way it was, any source of income would be welcome. A chartered helicopter would rendezvous with Van Oort's craft and rope ladder the film crew down. A tricky, possibly dangerous manoeuvre, but one worth trying. All went well and the TV crew boarded without injury.

Veldjans' logic was flawless: If she encountered the Royal Navy or a coastguard vessel and was turned back she had a story. If she and her crew were able to dock in a UK harbour she could report on the mood of the British people at the moment, and their reaction to the events. This far away from the conflict they would be in no danger, but while they were making their eight hour journey they could create an air of mounting tension with a series of piece-to-camera commentaries to occupy any slack airtime in the developing news.

It was while they were filming a false jeopardy update as the Zeemeermin sailed west-northwest towards Lowestoft with approximately twenty kilometres to go until landfall, the event occurred which would define Veldjans' career and change the destiny of two nations. The images have become as much a part of our common culture as those of the planes crashing into the World Trade Centre on 9/11. As then we will never forget where we were and what we were doing at that moment.

We'd left the hotel to go to a nearby bar-restaurant for a light lunch; though neither of us had much of an appetite. As everywhere a muted TV tuned to Euronews was on in a corner. Suddenly we heard a startled "Mon Dieu!" and looked round to where the exclamation had come from. The trio of regular patrons at the bar were looking ashen-faced at the screen which was just beginning to replay the footage we have all come to know so well. With the volume urgently raised the French voiceover drowns out the language used in the report, but the video speaks for itself.

Veldjans is standing in the bow with the haze of the horizon behind her; the Suffolk coast is not yet visible. She has just finished recording a Dutch language report; then she switches to her fluent English to repeat the same account before uploading them both.

"As we approach the English coast near Lowestoft, we can see no sign a war is in progress. We have yet to see any aircraft, or be intercepted by the coast guard. We have not even been interrogated by radio as we enter UK territorial waters. Everything seems so normal. We hope to dock in-".

Suddenly a flashbulb pulse of intense blue-white light fills the screen, bleaching out the picture. The fact it happens so silently is the most unnerving thing about it. The stunned pause is broken by Babette's scream of pure terror and string of shocked oaths as she realises what is happening; as well as the howl of pain from cameraman Peter Stecker: He was looking in the direction of the flash and has been blinded.

Van Oort shouts for them to dive to the deck and beware of the blast wave, which arrives with a thunderous clap soon after. Stecker, still unable to see, puts down his hand-held camera and the screen is filled with nothing but a view of the deck; but it is what we can hear which is compelling. There is more Dutch swearing, Stecker screaming "My eyes! I can't see! I'm blind!" and Babette calling out "Is anyone burned?"

Captain Van Oort, himself suffering visual impairment, turns his vessel hard about and heads for home at top speed: He radios a mayday. Veljdans leads Stecker below decks where a crew member gives him first aid.

The Zeemeermin was far enough from the detonation to avoid serious damage, and the team's satellite gear is unaffected by the electromagnetic pulse so Babette is heard calling the studio and demanding to be put on the air at once. She gets her way. As she awaits her cue she picks up the camera, sets it up on a mini tripod, and points it toward herself. Now we can see her reddened face, as if she's suffered a bad case of sunburn. In the moments before the short countdown to going live Veldjans retrieves the footage of the airburst and transmits an impromptu report along with it, speculating - correctly as it turned out - the Secessionist conflict had just gone nuclear.

Her breaking story electrified the world. The fact of the detonation was quickly confirmed by observers on the north-western continental coasts; then by the governmental civil defence services. Across Europe air defences were scrambled in fear another errant missile may come their way.

A Dutch rescue helicopter was rushed to the crew's aid. All aboard were evacuated. A Koninklijke Marine radiological protection unit dressed in full hazmat suits took over the ship and sailed it to the navy base in Den Helder.

Everyone rescued was flown directly to a military hospital and subjected to exhaustive medical examinations before being discharged. The Zeemermin was scanned for signs of fallout contamination but none were found. Astonishingly all those aboard escaped with just minor injuries, apart from Peter Stecker who suffered longer term sight loss. They were just far enough away from the hypocentre to escape with superficial burns and minimal radiation exposure.

More images of the Sizewell flash were later recovered from various surveillance cameras and other sources which happened to be pointing in the right direction at the right time, but it was the on-the-fly "Nueken de hel!" report which became iconic and would go on to win Babette Veldjans numerous awards.

Yet even as they were released from hospital, the remarkable story of the Zeermeermin and her crew was being eclipsed by the collapse of the United Kingdom.