WHAT’S THE STORY?

AS Vigil, starring Martin Compston and Suranne Jones, continues to enthral television audiences, many people have asked is it all based on a true story?

The short answer to that is no, as no submariner, as far as we know, has ever been murdered aboard a Trident ballistic missile submarine.

Compston’s character Chief Petty Officer Craig Burke was murdered, wasn’t he?

DID THEY STEAL THE NAME FROM A REAL TRIDENT SUBMARINE?

THE Vanguard-class submarines which carry the UK’s nuclear deterrent of Trident missiles are four in number and all are based at HM Naval Base Clyde at Faslane.

The four are called HMS Vanguard – by Royal Navy tradition the name of the first vessel is given to the class of ships or submarines – HMS Vengeance, HMS Victorious and HMS Vigilant.

The name Vigilant has been carried by many Royal Navy ships dating back to 1745. Interestingly the first HMS Vigilant got its name because it had been the French Navy ship Le Vigilant.

The current HMS Vigilant was launched in October 1995 and commissioned into service the following year.

DID THEY STEAL SOME OF THE PLOT LINES FROM REAL LIFE?

READERS may recall how The National told the story of the Antares, the trawler sunk by Royal Navy nuclear-powered submarine HMS Trenchant in the Arran Trench in the Firth of Clyde in the early hours of November 22, 1990. As we shall see there has been a murder aboard a Royal Navy nuclear submarine.

The Peace Camp in the series is clearly based on Faslane Peace Camp, and Vigil’s base Dunloch is a thinly disguised version of Faslane and Coulport, home to the entire nuclear submarine fleet.

Here’s the clinching evidence, provide by writer Tom Edge in an exclusive interview with Radio Times. He said: “I didn’t know a great deal about the deterrents or its history so I came to it pretty fresh.

“George Aza-Selinger at World Productions in Scotland sent me a lot of kind of taster articles culled from the last 10 years of reporting.

READ MORE: BBC’s Vigil and the real-life story of the Scots trawler sunk by a submarine

“And there was an interesting thing with a whistleblower who had served on a Vanguard-class submarine and had published, breaking the Official Secrets Act, a long screed about various kinds of problems and security issues and mechanical failures, which gave us an interesting insight into at least one take on the complexity and the human stories that lie behind what can seem like a real behemoth.”

“It wasn’t really until we started talking to people who have served on Vanguard-class submarines that the inside track of the experience of serving on these boats really opened out.

“And then after that, it was really like a two-way, constant dialogue. As we began to develop the stories that we thought best served the narrative, we would go and find people who could give us even more detail on that. And then what we found there would reshape the narrative. So there was a long, long period where research and dramatic intention constantly informed each other. So that was true all the way through to production.”

HOW REALISTIC IS VIGIL’S PORTRAYAL OF LIFE ON BOARD A TRIDENT SUB?

LET’S deal with HMS Vigilant first. The sub has been a particular target of anti-Trident protestors and in 2002 was vandalised with the word “vile” painted on to it alongside the CND symbol.

In October 2017, its captain and another officer were both relieved of duty for inappropriate relationships with female crew members. That same month, nine of the crew were removed from duty for using cocaine.

The whistleblower referred to by Tom Edge was William McNeilly, who told the Sunday Herald in May, 2015, of a whole host of allegations about multiple safety and security lapses. It was a clear breach of the Official Secrets Act which normally attracts a jail sentence. Instead the Royal Navy dishonourably discharged him, suggesting that McNeilly, who had served on Vigilant’s sister submarine HMS Victorious, was correct to say Trident was “a disaster waiting to happen.”

READ MORE: BBC viewers have one major complaint about the new Martin Compston series

The producers went to great lengths to ensure that sets and locations on Vigil were as close to the real thing as possible, and so far nobody has pointed to any great inaccuracies, except that alcohol and not drugs are usually the main source of crew problems.

THERE HAS BEEN A MURDER ON A SUB, HASN’T THERE?

ABLE Seaman Ryan Samuel Donovan murdered Lt Cdr Ian Molyneux, 36, of Wigan, Greater Manchester, on board the nuclear submarine HMS Astute when it was docked in Southampton in 2011. He was sentenced to life and must serve at least 25 years.

He also shot a second officer, Lt Cdr Christopher Hodge, during a drunken rampage which only ended when local council leader Royston Smith and council chief executive Alistair Neill, a Scot, stopped their official visit to the sub to tackle Donovan. Both were awarded the George Medal for their bravery.