Nuclear War advert

I remember it all very well - the advert, Threads, Where The Wind Blows etc. Visited Scotland's Secret Bunker and the displays there brought it all back very vividly indeed. There were certainly periods when the threat of nuclear war seemed very real indeed.

Raymond Briggs book 'Where the Wind Blows', featured an elderly couple following ALL the current government advice as to what citizens should do in the event of that four minutes warning going off. Everything that the couple does in the book is from instructions being handed out to the UK citizens.
It goes on to show how totally useless and farcical most of this advice was as no amount of 'turning your back on it', hiding under the stairs, etc would stop radiation sickness and death.
Around the same time the BBC made a short film as a documentary, also showing people following all government advice - and what would actually happen. This film was then banned from being shown by the then government.
The deep underground bunkers that were then being built by the government for themselves plus the Opposition, plus the Royal Family and a few high officials in each administrative areas ,were top of the High Secret list. It was not until a group from CND found out about them and give out information on their whereabouts that the public even knew about them.

I don't recall the advert mentioned but do remember Threads and how sad and frightened I felt.
I worked in the town centre of our large city in the 70's when IRA bomb threats were real. Part of my job being in the central law courts, I returned to the office in a different building, totally unaware that a bomb threat for the area our building was in had been made, and wandering around a deserted building wondering where the rest of the staff were, until the penny dropped! (I think most of them had gone down the road to the local Woolies, as there were loos there, and possibly a cafe).

I was a young mum of three in the 1970/80s …I can’t believe that I have no recollection at all of any of this happening. I’m by nature an anxious person…I’d have expected this to be something I’d never forget. I recall stand pipes when we had no water…the ambulance strike …various other things that happened …but nothing about a possible nuclear attack and preparations for same! Shall have to ask my exH if he recalls it! Really got me thinking now!

I remember being 13 at the time of the Cuban missile crisis, and thinking that atomic bombs might be falling in 24 hours, but I didn't have much to worry about because I was in rural Lincolnshire and far from any big city. Much later on, I discovered that Lincolnshire, with its many airbases, would have been among the first targets.

My friends and I perfected the art of getting to the pub and sitting down with a pint in 4 minutes. We thought we would go out in style ??

This was a trip down memory lane, I remember seeing it as a child. My parents used to say if anything happens get into the cellar under the stairs, as they were solid concrete. There was a chest freezer down there full of goodies so we might have lasted a day or two.

I have no recollection of this advert, but clearly remember when the Wind Blows.
What surprises me watching the advert now, is how very (not sure how else to describe it) ‘BBC English’ the narrator sounds, I thought this had all stopped by the 80’s!

BlueSapphire

Remember being very scared during the Cuban missile crisis, when nuclear war seemed on the cards. I was 17, I tbink, and very worried that I might not see the next day.

I was twelve and at boarding school in northern Germany, 6 hours by train away from home but only 30km from the East German border. We were told to grab a blanket and be ready to be driven to the nearest airfield if/when we needed to be evacuated.

I remember some of my fellow students prayed. It must have worked...

So do I and was shocked at the content after his lovely Snowman and Father Christmas books. I don't think I read it to the children.
I do remember having to to do practise at school myself in the 50's of having to sit under desks and where we had to line up in the school yard to be counted. Looking back we would have been in an inferno.
My mum went to evening classes about it as she had been a warden during WW2. My father who had been in WW2 just used to say "Never mind we'll all go together."

Yes, I, too, remember it well.

However, our house was at the apex of three RAF stations/command centres which we assumed would be the focus for an attack.

We didn't prepare in the ways suggested as we thought that we would be incinerated in an instant, so really had nothing too much to worry about. Except dying, if course...

Granny1810, love the idea of practising reaching a pub within the four minute warning!

Oh heavens, I had forgotten about this. Areas were to be set up as zones, the head where I was teaching at the time read out the directive to staff. We were to keep everyone in school, I couldn’t, for example, travel the 3 miles home to get our 2 children as apparently I could be shot for leaving ‘my’ zone. Scary stuff.

I dont remember any of the adverts or booklets but thats because I rarely watched tv as my Ex only liked Game shows. So I stuck my nose in a book with headset on listening to music or walked the dog for hours! It does explain where my DS may have got his fear of dying from at a young age! He had a vision of standing in his bedroom watching a bright light get closer! This was worrying as I did not know where he could have got this from. Maybe saw the adverts while watching tv with his DD?

Remember all the information distributed at the time. Wondered just how much preparation could be completed within the 3 minute warning.

We still have the book Protect and Survive. Might need it for climate change.

I can remember as a teenager being nonplussed when a really scary news report about the current threat of nuclear attack, was followed by the same newsreader reporting on the latest cricket results.
Just how serious was it?

I think I went a bit mad over this. I bought in stocks of tinned food and bottled water, kept tools handy in order to remove doors to make an indoor shelter, stocked up on wet wipes to keep the children clean, bought torches and batteries for a radio. I used to run through the order of tasks I had to perform to keep my children safe. I was a frightened young mum and felt quite despondent. Yes, I remember it.

I don't remember any of this at all! Not the advert or the leaflets or anything else GNERs have mentioned. In the early 80s I had three young children so I was probably too wrapped up in family matters to pay much attention to it. I never really watched the news or took any interest in political issues so I probably just brushed it aside as scaremongering. I think if I had seen that advert back then I would have wondered how on earth closing the curtains would protect us!

I remember my Nan saying that she didn't like going to the shelters during the Blitz, so she sat under the dining room table with a tea cosy on her head!

Got married in 1978, looking forward to life with children.
Remember the leaflet
Remember thinking in 1980, should we bring children into the world knowing what end they might face.

Things ppered to calm down a little
First daughter was born in October 1983

Little did I know at the time that one month later (November 1983 when apparently the danger was extremely high) we came as close to a Nuclear War as we ever have come, and that would have been by accident!

appeared

My parents kept the leaflets away from us children, and forbade any mention of the subject within our hearing.

I did hear about it at school.

My mother was in the camp that said it would never happen. "After all they used mustard gas in the WWI and found out how dangerous it was, so didn't use it in WW2 - the same thing will happen with nuclear warfare. Who wants to conquer land they cannot ever use?" was her attitude.

i remember the advert and asking a teacher who said not to worry as scotland would be wiped out so we would all die anyway, i had nightmares for months about this.

I do remember the book ‘Where The Wind Blows’ but nothing else. We lived near an American base and a nuclear reactor, and my Dh worked on the civilian side of the defence business, too, in those days. How it all passed me by, I don’t know. I knew there could be a nuclear war, of course, but I don’t recall thinking it would ever come to pass.

Strangely, I recall the Bay of Pigs and was scared of that, though I must have only been seven or eight.

I remember 'protect and survive' advice of hiding under a door you've skillfully removed from its hinges and propped against a load bearing wall ! Phew!! I thought sod it, I'll get drunk instead then I won't be bothered either way! Ah youf ful carefree times! I saw the funny side of just about everything and smirk at the idea my dad could get a door off its hinges?

I thought the bay of pigs was when the English threw a load of pigs into a bay in America so they wouldn't have any bacon......! I imagined how awful it would look , all the pigs splashing about in the bay.........