Do you remember Threads?

marymary62

It was horrifying - but at the time I thought it was very well done . I won’t watch it again but wonder how it has stood the test of time. I now live near Sheffield and both daughters and grandchildren are in Sheffield . I hope we all go in the first blast . But to be honest every war - nuclear or not - is a an absolute horror and the inhumanity of it all is more difficult to bear watching than an old film.

It will look dated as no one has a mobile phone, most people smoke, the cars are family saloons and estate cars, there are no laptops, far more people wear suits and entertainment is either on a clunky looking television set or a transistor radio, but that's how life was in 1984. However, Threads is very well acted by a cast of unknowns, text along the screen informs you of how things are developing, and the nucleat attack and aftermath scenes are horrific.

It was horrifying - but at the time I thought it was very well done . I won’t watch it again but wonder how it has stood the test of time. I now live near Sheffield and both daughters and grandchildren are in Sheffield . I hope we all go in the first blast . But to be honest every war - nuclear or not - is a an absolute horror and the inhumanity of it all is more difficult to bear watching than an old film.

Just watched this on bbc i player. Was shown on bbc4 (16/10/24) .
A hard watch, but watched it til the end.
But there is no end
With whats going on now in the world, it does make you think and hope to god it wont ever happen.
I wont lose any sleep because ive watched it.

I can remember there being some fears of a nuclear war in the early eighties, but the argument was neither side would risk total annihilation and a full scale nuclear war would never start. A history teacher at school who was quite up on these things reckoned if war was to break out, it would be a conventional war on the East German border, then one side would fire a tactical nuclear weapon that would kill tens of thousands of soldiers and civilians who were living nearby, and maybe this would dissuade both sides from starting a total war.

I remember watching 'World in Action' in 1972 when I was 12 or 13 and they said that the chance of a nuclear war by 1984 was a very high possibility. I thought Oh that's okay I'll be old by then it doesn't matter. 24? Old. I laugh about it now I'm 64

It's being shown again on BBC Four on Wednesday. I know the film is about a nuclear war, but it's interesting to look back at what Britain used to be like 40 years ago in the scenes before the war starts. People watching Tomorrow's World in a pub in the days before Sky Sports took over, people with shirts tucked in and no one in sportswear, half forgotten cars like Cortinas and Morris Itals, four TV stations and CND demonstrations.

Yes I remember it as the most depressing thing I've ever watched on TV. I sem to remember there was a similar American film around the same time centred around the Kansas area. There was also the music, such as the Sting song with the lyric "hope the Russians love their children too" and "When two tribes go to war" (Frankie Goes To Hollywood?). It all led to a feeling of doom and dread, and I certainly didn't expect to be sitting here typing this in 2024.

I don’t remember watching Threads when it was first shown in the UK in September, 1984. I finally watched it on YouTube a few years ago.
But I do vividly remember watching an American made for TV film on the same theme of nuclear war a few months earlier. It was called The Day After and scenes from that have stayed with me ever since.

I remember watching it with fascination and growing horror, I have never been able to forget it. We can only hope that it remains a drama, nothing more.

I remember it well. It was horrifying because it was in UK and I could recognise real situations which might happen. The stories were disturbing.

I do and now I hear on the BBC website that Mr Putin and indeed USA and us have some 'nice little nuclear weapons' for smaller targets and no radioactive fallout. Well that's good to know!!

Oh dear me, I remember that time. As a teenager then I was in a perpetual state of angst about it. Remember going to the HMSO bookshop and buying a copy of 'Protect And Survive' (the government self-help guide).
Read it from cover to cover and asked my dad if we could make a shelter out of a door (as suggested in the book.) He said no.

I haven’t seen Threads but I remember When The Wind Blows in the mid 1980s and I have read The Road. I am fearful of what is happening and I think it could end in nuclear war. My husband thinks it will never happen and I hope he is right.

Yes, it was horrifying because it IS a possibility.
The absolute collapse of all social structures and the survivors reduced to less-than-primitive beings trying to live through the nuclear winter was all too vivid.
My mum died 3 weeks after it aired and I was almost glad - I didn't want her to very possibly go through all that.
And just look around at all the conflict we have in the world right now.

Yes, I remember watching Threads when it came out and how traumatic it was. Strangely I thought about it again a few days ago but couldn't remember the title. I could not watch it again - all these years on.

Absolutely! It was horrific, probably because the possibility of all-out nuclear war seemed so real at the time. A few years back, we visited Scotland's Secret Bunker in Fife and they have various nuclear/war related films showing on a loop, and Threads was one of them. It brought it all back so vividly seeing it again.