Parents starting an air raid shelter

They give them out when there's unexplained radiation usually.

LOL
They can't see Brize Norton safe.

Surely When The Wind Blows showed us the futility of following government advice to the letter about what to do when the bomb hits?

Top secret you say.

Are you sure it is?

You need to watch it in context for the full horror. She hasn't even taken off her knickers.

Well they wouldn't do any harm, there's just no point.

After about the age of 43, iodine tablets aren’t recommended.

They won't - was thinking about this myself as my thyroid long ago atrophied due to Hashimoto's. The thyroid naturally absorbs iodine but it'll absorb radioactive iodine from fallout too, so the idea of taking a big dose of the unradioactive form protects it and blocks the radioactive Iodine from being absorbed. The idea behind this is to prevent thyroid cancer happening later on. However if you don't have a thyroid or have an atrophied one then it wouldn't absorb radioactive iodine so taking potassium iodide would be unnecessary, potentially harmful.

They do live near an army base (within 10 miles) so they’ve been packing food, water, games, bedding etc to survive a week! Is it me or is that insane?

What's the problem? Taking precautions and being prepared is not insane. It doesn't mean you've got to do it too.

We got iodine tablets from our Government in Ireland! Wonder how they would work if you've no thyroid or half a thyroid like me?

That's bonkers and if they do attack a bomb shelter isn't going to protect them 😄

We’ve still got a WW2 concrete air aid shelter in our garden. It’s build partially into the ground.
Maybe we could rent it out to some preppers.

It truly is a harrowing BBC movie which imagines decades from now, under a nuclear winter sky, the survivors scavenge for turnips while women are forced to sell themselves for a meagre ration of food. Language has broken down. Society has utterly collapsed. A woman gives birth in the ruins of a hospital, with no medicine, no help just pain and filth. The lucky ones died first. For the rest, it's a return to the Stone Age living like wild animals, clawing for survival.

If your parents have savings, tell them to spend it on a good holiday or on moving somewhere safe. Anything but waiting for this.

Not isolation but having supplies in case you can't get them elsewhere, for instance in an extended power cut over a large area (or even the whole UK if caused by a hybrid attack) - you need supplies for that. I had a 5 day power cut once, I was very lucky that I predicted it and filled a massive bucket with water because 5 days it meant 5 days with no running water.

Aside from the risk of their supplies being damaged in a flood, I don't see the harm. Not likely that they'll need it or that it will do much good if they do, but if it gives them a sense of comfort, why not? And strictly speaking, it isn't a bad idea to have a bag ready to grab and go for yourself. I've never made one myself, but I think it's probably worth the few minutes it would take to throw together. At least it would be wise to have a list of the essentials you'd want to grab if you only had 5 or 10 minutes to get out of your home.

You are not wrong. Haunts me yet.

Bit if they watched Threads, surely they would want the bomb to land on them, not to survive it! For those of you who are younger: Threads is the bleakest film you will ever watch!

Who thinks that they wouldn't think they would be emerging to take charge of the new world order ?

I wonder how the preppers who thought they'd see through the fall of Rome got on ? If only the Vikings could write 😀

This. What do they envisage when they emerge from their shelter?

Do they still have a video or dvd player? Send them a copy of When the Wind Blows.

It reminds me of the people who don't put money in a pension on the basis that "they might get run over next week" or don't bother trying to be healthy because "I might get cancer anyway". Half are lazy, and half lack any forwards vision.

Obviously there's no point building a shelter for nuclear war, but that doesn't mean you shouldn't prepare for surving other types of disaster, whether natural or man made.

A week?

What is going to be so bad that they need to isolate for a week but not so bad that they can trot on out after 7 days?

It might eventually become a USP if they ever want to sell their house I suppose.

The way I look at it, it’s always good that 50% of the population think something is a good idea and 50% think it’s a bad idea. That way at least half the population will survive. I apply this to everything in life, eg vaccines, the way people eat, how much they exercise etc.

100 Gy should do it.

It could have been some protection against flying debris but not a direct hit.

Oh bless your little heart I know that. An anderson shelter won't protect you from that though will it?