UK Cold war memories....

[Flapjacker48]

One for the slightly older members - what did you think of the world situation when you were growing up in the cold war period? Were you ever worried about a nuclear attack? Was it mentioned at school?

Watched "Threads" on BBC?

Anyone had a nuclear shelter dug in the garden? Stockpiled tins?

I have recently been sorting out some old stuff of a deceased family member - they were in the Post Office/BT in the 70s/80s and actually was one of the team responsible for looking after the national air attack warning system and "war plans" for BT in a region of the UK. Obviously at the time this was all classified, but all in the public domain now. The UK's civil defence planning by the 70s/80s was very much a "continuity of government" plan rather than the impossibility of doing much for the general population.

The UK's nuclear warning system however, would have given a warning of a impending air attack (once!) - prob longer a little longer than the popular "4 minutes" often quoted.

I m 54 so was a teenager in the 80s.
I spent a lot of time being TERRIFIED of nuclear war.
There were the Protect and Survive adverts on TV, watching Threads at school and the cold War on the news a lot of the time.
About 1983 there was a rumour in my school that a bomb would hit us that day and loads of people were crying.

Some people got depressed about it all and actually said they didn't see the point in working for exams we would maybe never need.

In 6th form my friends and I were heavily into CND and protest marches and got in trouble at school for it.

There was nobody to talk to about our fears except our peer group. Adults used to say "well you wouldn't know anything about it if it happened ".
Not much comfort to a scared 15 year old!

I grew up in the 60's and can still remember how I was terrified there would be an attack while I was at school and not able to reach my DM or DF. I still have a book of poems for children around the 4 minute warning. I can vaguely remember tv programmes like Blue Peter talking about children's fears around an attack.

I remember people running about scared from neighbour to neighbour in the early 1960s - I'm not sure if it was Kennedy's assassination or the Bay of Pigs threat. I do remember being very scared of fires in general while growing up and wonder if this was associated. So much TV was of course Spy stuff or stuff like the Space Family Robinson. There is a massive bunker near where we live which was prepared as a Government bunker in case of a nuclear bomb.

I’m also 54 and was terrified. The leaflet about making a shelter if you didn’t have a garden, like my parent’s house. Apparently all we needed was to use a mattress against the door of the cupboard under the stairs. That would make us survive 🤦‍♀️

Couldn’t see the point for doing exams or planning anything. This wasn’t helped by my abusive parents.

I was so relieved and happy when the Berlin Wall was pulled down.

Reading with intrigue

I’m in my fifties.
I remember reading When The Wind Blows, watching Threads and buying a CND badge that I clipped inside my school bag to hide from my Mum.

I was born in the '80s. My parents and family were already quite politically minded but became very anti nuclear and passed that onto us. We were all members of the PPU and CND, there were brands they avoided with connections to trident and Polaris and that sort of thing.
No shelters, no stockpiling or anything like that. Perhaps they realised the home shelters would potentially be of little use in survival. I think it's predicted most people, who survive the blast, would die of starvation if not the fallout.

We rewatched a CND screening of When the Wind Blows with talk and another short film recently. November of course! Essential viewing I think.

I was a child during this time and I remember the tv adverts. It was frightening in general with punks/strikes/powercuts/ etc. I remember being 'glazed' about it, as if it was something that would happen far away.

I'm 53. I did no career planning at school as I really thought we would all be dead imminently anyway. It seemed very much a reality.

My mum went to Greenham Common and I lived with my GP’s for a while. She thought I should watch Threads at age 6 so I knew what was coming. It’s still the worst thing I’ve ever seen.

I was a horrifically anxious child because of Trident.

As above, it was very much a part of our thinking. I was in CND and visited greenham common to support the protests. We were generally of the opinion that there was no point trying to survive a nuclear attack so didn't take any precautions.

I'm in my 60s and yes I was alarmed but it didn't affect my mood on a day to day basis. By the 80s I was raising 4 children so I suppose my thoughts were otherwise directed. I think I managed to just kind of blank the worry out.

I remember the leaflets and programmes about nuclear attacks . We used to hear the town alarms being tested and were told to get under our desks at school ! I can't remember being really panicked but I don't think that was our way of dealing with things then. We sort of got on with it.
Before that, we worried about being bombed by the IRA and spent many an afternoon in the playground of my church primary school while it was searched by the dinner ladies. There were always bomb threats and no one could afford to ignore them. We lived about 10 miles from one of the major bombings so it was all very real.
There's always an impending disaster to look forward to. 😏

I was an adult with a small child at the time. Threads was, and still is, the scariest film I've ever seen. We had the Protect and Survive leaflet but I had no intention of surviving it I wanted it over as soon as possible. My main fear was not being able to get my daughter from nursery in time to die together.

I was at un the early 80s and remember watching the gov information film about what to do in the event of the 4 min warning and nuclear attack. The personal preparations struck me as being no use at all - akin to peeing in the wind. I remember feeling resigned to dying and hopefully quickly.

Anyway, I knew I'd be useless at fending for myself. A cohort of women from my college would head off at the weekends to support the women protesting at Greenham Common. I considered joining them but realised it was a non-starter because I couldn't cope with camping and hovering over a hole in the ground or a bucket for a toilet. Know your limitations. I was 18 going on 12... and self-absorbed.

In the 80s I car shared with a member of the local council’s civil defence group, because of this I know that there are parts of a cow killed by a nuclear bomb that you can eat, I think you have to leave the meat nearest the bone as that is where the radiation settles, there was also something about root vegetables, I could be wrong so don’t rely on it. I also taught near a military base where there would be drills for the local villagers, pupils told me they were meant to lie down with their arms over their heads. One of the class was relieved that they lived 7 miles away so wouldn’t be affected.

Mid-50s. I visited Hack Green a couple of years ago. The nightmares of my childhood returned for months afterwards, but this time more specific and detailed.

Still, an amazing museum, well worth the visit.

I'm 41 so the threat was greatly reduced by the time I was born, but nobody actually told me that. I didn't see Threads till i was an adult thankfully, but read Brother in the Land, Children of the Dust, Z for Zachariah, and read and watched When the Wind Blows.

I just assumed that one day I would look out the window and see mushroom clouds.

Interestingly the classic UK gov pamphlet "protect and survive" was never issued to the public - it would only have happened in the transition to war. It was available to purchase for 50p from 1980 - not many copies sold!

If anyone has a copy from the 70s with no price on it then it is quite a rare item as it was only issued to LA emergency planning officers.

Some councils DID issue similar booklets, called "X (city/town) and the bomb" - these were often councils who were opposed to their statutory civil defence duties either for cost or ideological reasons.

A massive problem for central Gov/LAs and BT seems to be the assumptions on staff assigned to "war duties" showing up - would people with families actually wanted to go and sit in a bunker or protected telephone exchange?

The police actually set the sirens off - either directly by telephone link in towns and cities and by message to people in rural areas with hand sirens.

My mother was in the WRVS and they held civil defense exercices, felt to be needed because of the chance of nuclear war.

I was a teen in the 80's and was terrified, I joined CND and wanted to go to Greenham Common (but that was also because I'd heard there were lesbians there and hoped to meet some 😂)

I didn't see Threads but I remember the leaflets sent out on whitewashing windows etc. and how terrified I was. Plus then all the gravestone adverts started appearing about AIDS. When I left school at 16 I made a pact with friends that we would meet on NY day in 1990, 4 years later, 'if the world still existed'. It was all so scary.

Just after that I started reading about the potential for serious climate change and floods too.

I was quite little then so caught the tail end and didn’t really understand it all, but reading When the Wind Blows has stuck with me forever. It’s terrifying.

I'm 54 and don't remember being particularly concerned about any of it. I thought it was astoundingly obvious that 'pushing the button' would be so monumentally stupid that no-one would ever do it. Perhaps a bit naive/simplistic 😁

I was born in the late 50s and sure I remember a leaflet though it may have been a council one, I remember watching Threads and watched it again very recently as it is on BritBox