# Threads (1984 BBC post-nuclear film set in Sheffield)



## mancboy (Jun 13, 2006)

I'm looking for a place I can download this masterpiece of Cold War shit-uppery, or watch it online... For research purposes mainly but also I'd love to see it again... Could anyone recommend anywhere on the net that has a good TV archive cos I'm drawing blanks all round.

Sorry if this has been done before. I did search the threads for 'threads' but... well you see the problem.


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## Reno (Jun 13, 2006)

mancboy said:
			
		

> I'm looking for a place I can download this masterpiece of Cold War shit-uppery, or watch it online... For research purposes mainly but also I'd love to see it again... Could anyone recommend anywhere on the net that has a good TV archive cos I'm drawing blanks all round.
> 
> Sorry if this has been done before. I did search the threads for 'threads' but... well you see the problem.



It's out on DVD to buy and to rent.


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## mancboy (Jun 13, 2006)

Reno said:
			
		

> It's out on DVD to buy and to rent.



Yeah, I know - just lazy and a bit poor at the mo


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## editor (Jun 13, 2006)

That was a bleak, disturbing and moving film, although anyone watching it now is not going to get even a quarter of the desperation and despair of its post-nuclear Cold War setting .




There's a good article on the film here: http://www.ashleypomeroy.com/threads.html


> After the initial strikes on military bases, cities are next, and Sheffield doesn't fare very well. The aforementioned local officials are trapped in their bunker, with no-one to dig them out, the emergency services are immediately overwhelmed, whilst people on the surface are burned to a crisp (the character we expected to be the 'hero' runs off to get help and is never seen again). One hour and twenty-five minutes later, the fallout settles, and people start to breathe in radioactive dust, which is filtered from the blood by the liver and lymph nodes, where it remains, killing nearby cells.


Anyone remember the US version, The Day After? 
What a crock of shite that was!


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## Epico (Jun 13, 2006)

I have it on avi - If you want it pm me


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## aurora green (Jun 13, 2006)

editor said:
			
		

> ...although anyone watching it now is not going to get even a quarter of the desperation and despair of its post-nuclear Cold War setting .




It's so true. 
I couldn't sleep properly for weeks after watching it. 
At that point in history nuclear annihilation was a very real fear.
I still consider "Threads" the most disturbing thing I have ever watched. Ever. 
And I still remember it vividly, years after.


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## mancboy (Jun 13, 2006)

editor said:
			
		

> That was a bleak, disturbing and moving film, although anyone watching it now is not going to get even a quarter of the desperation and despair of its post-nuclear Cold War setting .
> 
> There's a good article on the film here: http://www.ashleypomeroy.com/threads.html
> 
> ...



Read the Ashley Pomeroy article this afternoon. Really good, yeah. I like the way he contextualises it against real life events at the time. One of the reasons I want to watch it is to see if the sense of dread it sparked the first time is still there. I suspect it wouldn't be, but give it a year or two and you never know...

And I don't remember The Day After but I LOVE Red Dawn for sheer Cold War crapness.


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## editor (Jun 13, 2006)

More about the film here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Threads

The bit where they looked back and saw the bomb going off over Sheffield will stay with me all my life. 
<shudder>


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## Dask (Jun 13, 2006)

Threads is the darkest thing I think I've seen.

I never saw this when I was younger but I watched it last year and it scared the living shit out of me,don't think I've ever been so freaked out by a film/tv program before.

Can't even begin to think what watching at school would of done to me.


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## Kameron (Jun 13, 2006)

editor said:
			
		

> The bit where they looked back and saw the bomb going off over Sheffield will stay with me all my life.
> <shudder>


The men running to hide under the trucks, the kitten rolling over and over, the mike bottles melting. That montage never leaves.
<shudder>


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## Genghis Cohen (Jun 13, 2006)

Its usually on uknova.


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## Dask (Jun 13, 2006)

It don't think it will be on UKNova now it's been released on DVD.


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## Blagsta (Jun 13, 2006)

We saw that at school in an English lesson iirc (although I'd already watched it once) 1985/6ish when I was 14 or 15.  Everyone was chatting, pissing about, not paying attention during the scene setting.  When the bomb dropped, there was deathly silence, you could have heard a pin drop.  Scared the shit out of everyone.


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## Dai Sheep (Jun 13, 2006)

Blagsta said:
			
		

> We saw that at school in an English lesson iirc (although I'd already watched it once) 1985/6ish when I was 14 or 15.  Everyone was chatting, pissing about, not paying attention during the scene setting.  When the bomb dropped, there was deathly silence, you could have heard a pin drop.  Scared the shit out of everyone.



Exactly the same happened to me in English class, this was in the early 90's though. 

If ever there was a film that had such a frightening affect on such an age group it was this one. The effect was exacerbated by the set text for the year being a book on a similar subject


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## e19896 (Jun 13, 2006)

What a class film i used to sniff glue in the old Infermary where much of it was shot now empty and Tesco now stands there with a car park over the road was kelvin flats and then further was don joinery closed down 95 along with the old triamph bike shop that i sqauted 96 there now stands a meca bingo hall.

I lived on Kelvin Flats http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Walkley where other parts was filmed and here is another nostelga fact for you all the opening shot for come feel the noise film with slade was also filmed on Kelvin Flats wtach you see my ant Val and her front door.. http://s19.photobucket.com/albums/b171/sheffieldarchives/kelvin flats/ are some images from a mate..


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## Genghis Cohen (Jun 13, 2006)

Dask said:
			
		

> It don't think it will be on UKNova now it's been released on DVD.



You're quite correct, its on emule/kad though, with quite a few sources.


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## Reno (Jun 13, 2006)

editor said:
			
		

> Anyone remember the US version, The Day After?
> What a crock of shite that was!



Yes, it came out a couple of years before Threads and all I remember was that Jason Robards shirt stayed a pristine white throughout the whole thing. There was another American TV movie which came out around the same time called Testament, which was better but for me Threads was also the most depressing (fictional) film I'd seen up to then and one of the few films that gave me nightmares. I haven't seen it since it was shown on television and wonder if it would still have the same effect on me now.


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## upsidedownwalrus (Jun 14, 2006)

I don't think I've seen Threads... have only seen the US version Editor mentioned.  I was abou 7 though so it still scared me!


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## isvicthere? (Jun 14, 2006)

Wasn't it scripted by Barry Hines (of "Kestrel for a knave" fame)?


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## Apathy (Jun 14, 2006)

i first saw threads when bbc4 screened it, it still works, i remember i went to bed after watching it all disturbed


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## Louloubelle (Jun 14, 2006)

I remember seeing it when I was kid and it terrified me 

Immediately after seeing it I decided that I didn't want to have kids because I didn't want them to suffer an experience like that portrayed in the film


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## Belushi (Jun 14, 2006)

I saw it as a kid and it terrified me, then I saw it again on BBC4 20 odd years later and it still terrifies me.

IMO we werre very fortunate the Cold War ended with a whimper and not a bang, the events protrayed in Threads could have very easily happened. I remember as a kid thinkling it was only a matter of time  

I wish they'd show the War Game as well, another scary depiction of a nuclear attack on the UK


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## "Pete" (Jun 14, 2006)

Kicked off over Iran as well!


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## Skate (Jun 14, 2006)

We watched Threads in our History lessons at school. We also watched several episodes of the World at War about the Holocaust. 

I think every school child should be given the opportunity to watch those kinds of films and programmes - _if_ they wish to as they're obviously disturbing, although therein lies the lesson - because those lessons taught us far more about history than any of the rest we'd had.


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## Belushi (Jun 14, 2006)

Pete said:
			
		

> Kicked off over Iran as well!



Innit! thats a fucking worry!


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## Flashman (Jun 14, 2006)

It's on Limewire, between 35-40KB/s right now.


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## Firky (Jun 14, 2006)

Saw this when I was a kid, I couldn't of been older than 7 or 8. Scared the shit out of me. Threads and Plague Dogs are NOT FILMS FOR CHILDREN.


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## zoltan (Jun 14, 2006)

agree- threads scared the buggery out of me.

Since then, ive seen the War game - horrible in its own BBC psdeudo-documentary bleakness.


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## Kameron (Jun 14, 2006)

Pete said:
			
		

> Kicked off over Iran as well!


I thought it started in South Africa to be honest, ground troops in Iran was the second stage but Russia was the threat and we can't be said to live in fear of the bomb. The loss of this populace living under fear control used by western governments since the end of WW2, the building up of the Terrorist threat and repeated high profile raids but still currently without the political will to turn it into a proper fit up which I expect to be the next stage.


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## Yossarian (Jun 14, 2006)

I saw it again a couple months ago - chilling as fuck, especially the ending that makes it clear humanity hasn't got a hope!

I don't know why people are talking about the threat of nuclear annihilation like it was a thing of the past because there's a lot more spare nukes floating around the world now than there ever were in the Cold War. With the Americans and Russians facing off, there was the hope that neither side would be insane enough to use them. With there being every chance of a nuclear weapon being in the hand of some randoms, you never know what the fuck's going to happen...


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## zoltan (Jun 14, 2006)

Yossarian said:
			
		

> I saw it again a couple months ago - chilling as fuck, especially the ending that makes it clear humanity hasn't got a hope!
> 
> I don't know why people are talking about the threat of nuclear annihilation like it was a thing of the past because there's a lot more spare nukes floating around the world now than there ever were in the Cold War. With the Americans and Russians facing off, there was the hope that neither side would be insane enough to use them. With there being every chance of a nuclear weapon being in the hand of some randoms, you never know what the fuck's going to happen...



Was in Transnistria 18 months ago ............depending upon which hysterical/ sensible account of the place you read, the Nuclear Weapon/Rogue state ( let) scenario could be nearer to us than we currently imagine.


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## Error Gorilla (Jun 17, 2006)

_Threads_ was indeed written by Barry Hines, who also wrote the book that would become _Kes_. He still lives in Sheffield.

I saw the film when I was about 10 and it scared me half to death. I spent the next few months going to the library to read _Protect and Survive_. I watched it again a couple of years ago, with some housemates and it hadn't lost any of its power to shock.


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## Laclustre (Jun 18, 2006)

Official Government documents, which discuss the realities of UK post-nuclear attack planning, are now starting to come into the public domain; and pretty chilling reading they make too. 

This gem is a first draft of a recently declassified H.M. Treasury document, written in the mid 1970s. It concerns monetary policy in a post-attack UK.







"As for (d) [an all-out nuclear missile strike on the UK], the money policy would of course be absurdly unrealistic for the few surviving administrators and politicians as they struggled to organise food and shelter for the tiny bands of surviving able-bodied and the probably larger number of sick and dying.

Most of the other departments' contingency planning might also be irrelevant in such a situation.

*Within a fairly short time the survivors would evacuate the UK and try to find some sort of life in less affected countries (southern Ireland ?)."*

It would seem that Whitehall planners were in agreement with Threads, as to the true picture of a post-attack UK.




Laclustre


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## SonOfGoatboy (Jun 18, 2006)

aurora green said:
			
		

> It's so true.
> I couldn't sleep properly for weeks after watching it.
> At that point in history nuclear annihilation was a very real fear.
> I still consider "Threads" the most disturbing thing I have ever watched. Ever.
> And I still remember it vividly, years after.



 Couldn't agree more. Watched this once, on a nice sunny afternoon after a very heavy night, about three years ago. We all sat in silence for the duration and for about ten minutes afterwards. I've never been able to watch it again. Quite the most sickeningly scary film I've ever seen. Chilling and horrible. the public information film tone adds immeasurably to the nastiness of the whole experience.


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## laptop (Jun 18, 2006)

I fear that the current lack of preoccupation with the nuclear threat is a cultural phase - it's about what we're looking at, not what there is to see.

The Pugwash Conference and the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists agree with me:




wiki

These are serious people - Pugwash was founded by people who'd helped build the Bomb and then - especially after the attack on Nagasaki - gone "uh-oh".

One ot the things they bear in mind in setting the clock is the background level of risk of an entirely accidental nuclear war - due to bugs in warning system computers, for example. I think it was a Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI) paper that estimated this risk at one per cent per year. Dan Plesch, now at the Royal United Services Institute and all over BBC News 24, certainly agreed with this when I discussed it with him.

Sweet dreams


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## machine cat (Jun 20, 2006)

What a freaky film. I'm glad it's out on DVD because i'd like to see it again but when I searched for it a while ago the only versions cost 70+ pounds!

One of the most disturbing pieces of film i've ever seen, but not as bad as *shudder* Scum.


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## Reno (Jun 20, 2006)

drcarnage said:
			
		

> What a freaky film. I'm glad it's out on DVD because i'd like to see it again but when I searched for it a while ago the only versions cost 70+ pounds!



For some reason that's the case on amazon, but play.com and others have it for under £10.


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## golightly (Jun 20, 2006)

I found it for £8.97 on Amazon.


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## machine cat (Jun 20, 2006)

Must have been reissued recently then. The last time I looked was a couple of years ago.


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## Grandma Death (Jun 21, 2006)

A true classic that chills to the bones. Bleak dark and far superior to The Day After.

Although the best 'nuclear bomb going off scene' ever was in Terminator 2.


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## Backatcha Bandit (Jun 22, 2006)

Here's a snippet of vintage footage of a well known individual to help place it in context: 

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-1123774119508772272&q=rumsfeld+soviet 


(from 'The Power Of Nightmares' - a good antidote).


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## chainsaw cat (Jun 22, 2006)

Great film.

I started a thread on another board a while ago, asking if other 30smethings felt, like me, that they'd grown up tall and proud, in the shadow of the mushroom cloud (thank you F Mercury). And, if so, did they feel like there were any lasting effects?

I for one feel like it's a big thing to have had hanging over my childhood and adolesence, possibly something we won't know the consequences of for a while yet. 

Maybe there could be a PhD for someone in looking at links between baby boomer 'fuck tomorrow-ism' and the assumption that they were the generation destined to be flash-fried _en masse_?


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## zArk (Jun 22, 2006)

Google Vid Undersea Explosion 

 scientists and military observe the bomb. Very surreal sight


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## Laclustre (Jun 23, 2006)

One aspect that Threads didn't go into detail about, was the whereabouts of Central Government during the nuclear attack.

From 1961 - ?, should a nuclear strike on the UK be considered imminent, they were going to head for their 35 acre underground bolt-hole at Corsham, North Wiltshire, known as the Central Government Wartime relocation headquarters - variously codenamed SUBTERFUGE, STOCKWELL, BURLINGTON, TURNSTILE.

Initially, it was to operate with 3,750 staff, but by the early 1970s this had dropped to circa 750.

Once the order to man the bunker was given, all 3,750 nominees would have evacuated London over a 14 hour period. Chartered trains would have collected them from Kensington Olympia Station and taken them to a still classified location, codenamed CHECKPOINT. From there, the MOD would have transported them in a huge single convoy to the enormous bunker underneath Corsham.

The original Interim Operational Manning Orders for the bunker (then codenamed STOCKWELL have recently been declassified, see below.

http://i49.photobucket.com/albums/f288/linstock/BURLINGTONT199924014.jpg

http://i49.photobucket.com/albums/f288/linstock/BURLINGTONT199924015.jpg

http://i49.photobucket.com/albums/f288/linstock/BURLINGTONT199924016.jpg

http://i49.photobucket.com/albums/f288/linstock/BURLINGTONT199924017.jpg

The BBC has recently set up a good site, devoted to the Cold War Central Government wartime HQ - BURLINGTON (see below)

http://www.bbc.co.uk/wiltshire/underground_city/index.shtml

And if you want to see how big this formerly Top Secret bunker really is, click on the link below. Its the official 1996 MOD map of the site, obtained through the Freedom of Information Act.

http://i61.photobucket.com/albums/h56/shadwellbright/54d685b0.jpg



Laclustre


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## Flashman (Jun 23, 2006)

Cool. The virtual tour wotsit reminds me of some Tomb Raider levels, Aldwych and the like. The level would be called The Telephone Exchange though. Fuck me, I'm not even drunk and I'm posting bollocks.


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## Tom A (Aug 14, 2006)

Inspired by the "what films you watched at school" thread in General.

I first saw it a few months ago, and I must say it is one really fucked up film, really realistic and must have given many people nightmares when it first came out. Also cast a really poigant message today, even if the Cold War is history, giving way to the War On/Of Terror.


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## pk (Aug 15, 2006)

Terrifying film.

Though the actual bomb was a bit crap.


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## belboid (Aug 15, 2006)

did I ever say that my old flat gets blown up in this?

Oh, yes, every single time the film gets mentioned.....

As you were.


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## Tom A (Aug 15, 2006)

pk said:
			
		

> Though the actual bomb was a bit crap.


I think the Beeb got told off for letting off smoke bombs in Sheffield in order to simulate a nuke. That itself might be a poor deployment of special effects, but I just love it when one of the men goes "Jesus Christ, they've done it!". Also there is a quite graphic depiction of a woman losing control of her bladder 

Also when the bomb is dropped on Sheffield itself you get some pretty harrowing scenes, including the total destruction of the city centre, melting milk bottles, and a poor kitty gets burnt alive 

Must be one of the most terrifying films ever to be made, and will ever be made, by the BBC.


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## machine cat (Aug 15, 2006)

A kitten dies?  I can't remember watching that.


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## pk (Aug 16, 2006)

It's the best bit!


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## machine cat (Aug 16, 2006)

don't say that. it's mean!


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## Apathy (Aug 16, 2006)

Didnt laugh once, i remember going to bed feeling a bit disturbed a few years back when i first watched it


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## Belushi (Aug 16, 2006)

I watched it in about 84 along with The War Game and it fucking terrified me, saw it twice again in recent years when its been shown on BBC4 and it still terrifies me.


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## StraightOuttaQ (Dec 4, 2011)

I went to school just by Spaghetti Junction - I always assumed I wasn't going to make 16, because I just took it as read that Birmingham would be the first target, and Spaghetti Junction the epicentre of any nuke attack in order to knock out the roads network. Making it to 16 without being nuked was probably the proudest acheivement of my life up to that point.....


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## editor (Dec 4, 2011)

The full film is now on YouTube. It's a fucking fantastically bleak anti war movie, set in a time when nuclear annihilation was a very real possibility. It should be made compulsory viewing for world leaders and warmongers.


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## DotCommunist (Dec 4, 2011)

fucking hell. that was grim. If i'd been alive to watch it during the cold war I'd have shit bricks


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## Divisive Cotton (Dec 4, 2011)

still today it is probably one of the most disturbing dramas you are ever likely to see


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## dylanredefined (Dec 4, 2011)

The American Version was rubbish(only good bit was their missiles flying)Threads was chilling.Though remeber some crass jokes about the bbc getting complaints about the horror.Showing sountherners  pre bomb Sheffield .


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## 19sixtysix (Dec 4, 2011)

editor said:


> It should be made compulsory viewing for world leaders and warmongers.



I used to think that but I've realised Blair must have had all the education on the trenches and battle fields and surely have seen the grave yards in Northern France. I have concluded he is a murderous war mongering bastard who gets off on war


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## DotCommunist (Dec 4, 2011)

Divisive Cotton said:


> still today it is probably one of the most disturbing dramas you are ever likely to see


 
I started watching it as 'lol, the 70s' but as it got grimmer and grimmer I was gripped


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## Mr.Bishie (Dec 4, 2011)

Not seen it for years, though can remember it vividly, such a powerful film. Growing up during the cold war years we were made to watch 'When the wind blows' during a school assembly - an animated film of an elderly couple, Jim & Hilda Bloggs preparing themselves for imminent nuclear attack, & then confronting the slow death of radiation poisoning. Unforgettable.


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## _angel_ (Dec 4, 2011)

editor said:


> The full film is now on YouTube. It's a fucking fantastically bleak anti war movie, set in a time when nuclear annihilation was a very real possibility. It should be made compulsory viewing for world leaders and warmongers.



Why would they care, they're mostly insane and know them and their families will be safe in a bunker somewhere.


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## isvicthere? (Dec 4, 2011)

DotCommunist said:


> I started watching it as 'lol, the 70s' but as it got grimmer and grimmer I was gripped



Plus it was made in the 80s.


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## smmudge (Dec 4, 2011)

Mr.Bishie said:


> Not seen it for years, though can remember it vividly, such a powerful film. Growing up during the cold war years we were made to watch 'When the wind blows' during a school assembly - an animated film of an elderly couple, Jim & Hilda Bloggs preparing themselves for imminent nuclear attack, & then confronting the slow death of radiation poisoning. Unforgettable.



I watched a lot of cold war films and documentaries last year, including Threads, the War Game, a couple about the immediate effects of a bomb, one over St Pauls....and When the Wind Blows is still the one that sends shivers up my spine, really chilling. Just thinking about it makes me shudder!


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## 19sixtysix (Dec 4, 2011)

DotCommunist said:


> I started watching it as 'lol, the 70s' but as it got grimmer and grimmer I was gripped



A lol is the last thing this film ever managed. It scared the shit out of my teenage self. I stupidly watched it on my own when my parents were out.


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## DotCommunist (Dec 4, 2011)

isvicthere? said:


> Plus it was made in the 80s.



even before the bombs fell it wasn't a uk I recognized old man.

the steady deterioration was horrible


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## editor (Dec 4, 2011)

_angel_ said:


> Why would they care, they're mostly insane and know them and their families will be safe in a bunker somewhere.


If you watch the film you'll see that those in the underground shelter don't survive either. And there's not much point being safe in a bunker if there's nothing left above ground.


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## jakethesnake (Dec 4, 2011)

dylanredefined said:


> The American Version was rubbish(only good bit was their missiles flying).


 The American one - The Day After - was rubbish but it got loads more hype than Threads. It was shown on the ITV network. They were so concerned about people's reactions that they broadcast some sort of discussion programme immediately afterwards designed to reassure people... except here in the South West where the local ITV (TSW as was) put out Pink Floyd Live at Pompei instead.


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## smmudge (Dec 4, 2011)

Yeah The Day After was just shite.


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## 19sixtysix (Dec 4, 2011)

editor said:


> If you watch the film you'll see that those in the underground shelter don't survive either. And there's not much point being safe in a bunker if there's nothing left above ground.



To be honest most of the folks in town hall bunkers would have been buried alive as the rubble would have blocked their exits.


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## smmudge (Dec 4, 2011)

Even if they did get out there'd be no country left to lead. Soon they would have wished they'd have stayed above ground and died with the plebs.


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## Brixton Hatter (Dec 4, 2011)

We saw it at school too - aged about 12 in the late 80s. I reckon every kid at my secondary school got to watch it. It was chilling and people took it really seriously. 

The context today is a bit different. Back then the anti-nuclear movement was massive and we all wore our CND badges to school. Today, nuclear nervousness seems more about the 'terrorist threat' whilst the US actually uses depleted uranium weapons and bunker busting mini-nukes


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## danny la rouge (Dec 4, 2011)

DotCommunist said:


> fucking hell. that was grim. If i'd been alive to watch it during the cold war I'd have shit bricks


I remember it well.

Cheers for the YouTube link Ed, will watch it later.


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## laptop (Dec 4, 2011)

Brixton Hatter said:


> the US actually uses depleted uranium weapons *and bunker busting mini-nukes*



It does? I missed the headline?


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## Mr.Bishie (Dec 4, 2011)

smmudge said:


> ...the War Game



Not seen that one.



Brixton Hatter said:


> We saw it at school too - aged about 12 in the late 80s. I reckon every kid at my secondary school got to watch it.



Thinking back, we were made to watch Threads too, & that would have been when i first saw it. 12 years old in '84 & a film that i've never forgotten.


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## Mr.Bishie (Dec 4, 2011)

The War Game - £44 on play, £49-£85 on Amazon!  Unavailable to rent with Lovefilm.

Found it here - http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=2864871032688882557


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## isvicthere? (Dec 4, 2011)

DotCommunist said:


> even before the bombs fell it wasn't a uk I recognized old man.
> 
> the steady deterioration was horrible



Roman Britain isn't "a UK I recognise", but I know when it was.


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## Roadkill (Dec 4, 2011)

Divisive Cotton said:


> still today it is probably one of the most disturbing dramas you are ever likely to see



Yup - but also one of the best IMO.  It's a brilliant film, and all too plausible in its depiction of what a nuclear war would be like.


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## editor (Dec 4, 2011)

Just watching the cheery War Game now. Ouch.


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## Roadkill (Dec 4, 2011)

editor said:


> Just watching the cheery War Game now. Ouch.



For a similar dose of cheerfulness, here's something else I saw recently:



_World War III_ - not as good as _Threads_ or _The War Game_, but an interesting film even so.  It uses archive footage and interviews to tell an alternative story of how the Cold War ended - with Gorbachev overthrown in a coup in 1989 and replaced by military hardliners.  Tension rises between the US and the USSR, fighting breaks out in Germany, out come the nukes and, as the narrator's final line puts it, over a shot of a cruise missile, 'There is no further historical record of what happened next.'


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## Mr.Bishie (Dec 4, 2011)

editor said:


> Just watching the cheery War Game now. Ouch.



I was about to, but Frozen Planet's on repeat. Save the depression for later.


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## killer b (Dec 4, 2011)

i enjoyed threads, but thought it lost it's was a bit once it moved beyond the immediate aftermath of the bombing.


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## Mr.Bishie (Dec 4, 2011)

For anyone who hasn't seen it -


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## killer b (Dec 4, 2011)

i found a copy of the comic book of _when the wind blows_ in the kids section of the local charity bookshop.


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## dylanredefined (Dec 4, 2011)

Brixton Hatter said:


> We saw it at school too - aged about 12 in the late 80s. I reckon every kid at my secondary school got to watch it. It was chilling and people took it really seriously.
> 
> The context today is a bit different. Back then the anti-nuclear movement was massive and we all wore our CND badges to school. Today, nuclear nervousness seems more about the 'terrorist threat' whilst the US actually uses depleted uranium weapons and bunker busting mini-nukes


     Mini nuclear  Bunker busters don't actually exist.Depleted uranium ammo though nasty is not a nuclear weapon.You probably stand a greater chance of dying in a nuclear blast than during the cold war.What with rogue states and terrorists and other excuses.Though a full scale Nuclear exchange is probably less likely.Not sure that makes the world safer or less safe.


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## Mr.Bishie (Dec 4, 2011)

dylanredefined said:


> Not sure that makes the world safer or less safe.



2 Billion recently spent on Trident. The power of nuclear retaliation is still very much on the agenda from the cunts that be. The existence of 'dirty bombs' is surely on the paranoid radar in the West ?


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## Roadkill (Dec 4, 2011)

Mr.Bishie said:


> The existence of 'dirty bombs' is surely on the paranoid radar in the West ?



Yes, it is.  A friend in the know tells me that the other thing exercising the security services' minds is the possibility of a nuclear bomb being secreted onto an aeroplane and detonated over a major city.  The consequences of even a relatively small nuke going off on a plane over, say, London don't bear thinking about...


----------



## dylanredefined (Dec 4, 2011)

Fortunately getting hold of a nuclear bomb is a lot harder than Hollywood would lead you to believe.Even if you detonated it they could find out where it came from and then missiles fly.Building a dirty bomb that contaminates a wide area again is lot harder than stealing a container load of old x ray machines and wiring it with explosives.Though that would work really won't contaminate that large an area.
      Nuclear Deterrence works .Nothing else seems too stop humanities interest in war.


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## Roadkill (Dec 4, 2011)

dylanredefined said:


> Fortunately getting hold of a nuclear bomb is a lot harder than Hollywood would lead you to believe.



Harder, but apparently not impossible, although as you say a dirty bomb is more likely.


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## Mr.Bishie (Dec 4, 2011)

'Missing Nukes' were in the news only last week irrc.


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## Giles (Dec 4, 2011)

Yossarian said:


> I saw it again a couple months ago - chilling as fuck, especially the ending that makes it clear humanity hasn't got a hope!
> 
> I don't know why people are talking about the threat of nuclear annihilation like it was a thing of the past because there's a lot more spare nukes floating around the world now than there ever were in the Cold War. With the Americans and Russians facing off, there was the hope that neither side would be insane enough to use them. With there being every chance of a nuclear weapon being in the hand of some randoms, you never know what the fuck's going to happen...



This is what worries me. Even during the most hostile periods of the Cold War, from the 1960s and Cuba, to the early 80s when "Threads" was made, both sides knew very well what any overt military confrontation could lead to. And they weren't mad, at the end of the day.

Now, we've got the worry of some country or terrorist outfit obtaining a nuke, and being mad. Believing that it is their religious mission to blow up their perceived enemies, and not caring if they die, or how many die, in the process.

Giles..


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## dylanredefined (Dec 4, 2011)

On the other hand your looking at one bomb and maybe one in retaliation rather than a world ending event.


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## smmudge (Dec 4, 2011)

I'm surprised they even made the War Game, some of the info on there seems _incredibly_ sensitive...though that was the one that didn't get shown for ages IIRC.


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## jakethesnake (Dec 4, 2011)

smmudge said:


> I'm surprised they even made the War Game, some of the info on there seems _incredibly_ sensitive...though that was the one that didn't get shown for ages IIRC.


Yeah, the BBC never showed it. CND used to organise showings in church halls with increasingly knackered prints of the film as the BBC stopped issuing new prints. My parents took me to see it one evening. No wonder I was a gloomy teenager. Watching Threads today reminded me of watching it as a kid with my parents... the bit when they say about known subversives being rounded up, I remember my Dad saying "Well that'll be us then".


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## laptop (Dec 4, 2011)

jakethesnake said:


> Yeah, the BBC never showed it.



_The War Game_ itself finally saw television broadcast in the United Kingdom on BBC2 on 31 July 1985 - WikiFact!


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## Roadkill (Dec 4, 2011)

smmudge said:


> I'm surprised they even made the War Game, some of the info on there seems _incredibly_ sensitive...though that was the one that didn't get shown for ages IIRC.



AFAIK the BBC was leaned on not to show it because it was 'too horrifying' - or, more to the point, too likely to create support for CND.  It was never banned as such and, as jakethesnake says, people did see it, at film showings and the like, but the BBC didn't screen it for twenty years.  By then Threads had been screened, about which there was no serious suggestion it should be censored, despite the fact it was far more 'horrifying' - and the fact that Karen Meagher (who played Ruth) was a committed CND activist and took on the role partly as a way of pointing out to the world at large how serious the nuclear threat was.  Changing times, and all that...


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## Giles (Dec 4, 2011)

I remember watching Threads when it was first shown on TV. I was still a schoolkid at that time.

Very scary and dark film. Especially given that I was then living  down the road from a couple of RAF bases which were then home to bombers and nukes, just waiting for the order to fly off and bomb Russia, and so were pretty much a guaranteed prime target if it ever kicked off.

I remember the Radio Times cover and feature about Threads and The Day After. Scarily, the cover of "Radio Times" featureed a photo of a traffic warden with a gun and a masked face. As if WW3 and nuclear winter wasn't going to be bad enough, we'd have to contend with armed traffic wardens!

Giles..


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## Roadkill (Dec 4, 2011)

Giles said:


> Very scary and dark film. Especially given that I was then living down the road from a couple of RAF bases which were then home to bombers and nukes, just waiting for the order to fly off and bomb Russia, and so were pretty much a guaranteed prime target if it ever kicked off.



Oh well, at least it would have been over quickly.

Tbh that's the thing that strikes me most about _Threads_, and all the other nuclear war films, and the bits and bats of research I did in the wake of watching them - that in the event of a nuclear war it'd be best to be fried in the first few minutes, because to survive would be to enter a world in which the living would envy the dead.


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## TheHoodedClaw (Dec 5, 2011)

smmudge said:


> Yeah The Day After was just shite.



It's no Threads or The War Game, but it isn't exactly a barrel of laughs either.


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## twentythreedom (Dec 5, 2011)

There was a brilliant program about Hiroshima on Discovery the other day, loads of eyewitness testimony, pictures and film footage. Absolutely horrific.

I remember seeing Threads etc when I was a kid in the '80s - absolutely scared the crap out of me. Nuclear war really did seem to be a genuine likelihood back then.

Anyone remember hearing air raid sirens being tested? I remember hearing a quick blast of them some time in the early '80s - freaked the shit out of me! Do those sirens still exist? Used to see them here and there on tall lampposts.


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## Kaka Tim (Dec 5, 2011)

God - 'Threads' - for all its brilliance I dont think I could bring myself to watch it again. Scared the shit out of me at the time. Bleak, Disturbing and terrifying and probably the peak of british social realist TV drama. Consider the recent 'Surviovrs' TV series and how shit that was in comparison.

Good call on the Radio Times cover of the time - I remember it well. But the machine gun toting traffic warden wasn't masked - his face was covered in bandages.


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## miniGMgoit (Dec 5, 2011)

Not sure if this has been answered but it's available on PTP if you have an account.


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## scooter (Dec 5, 2011)

It's on youtube:


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## isvicthere? (Dec 5, 2011)

Giles said:


> This is what worries me. Even during the most hostile periods of the Cold War, from the 1960s and Cuba, to the early 80s when "Threads" was made, both sides knew very well what any overt military confrontation could lead to. And they weren't mad, at the end of the day.
> 
> Now, we've got the worry of some country or terrorist outfit obtaining a nuke, and being mad. Believing that it is their religious mission to blow up their perceived enemies, and not caring if they die, or how many die, in the process.
> 
> Giles..



Good point. So not only are we less equal, less affluent and less socially cohesive than during the Cold War, but the likelihood of nuclear conflagration remains.


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## Roadkill (Dec 5, 2011)

twentythreedom said:


> Anyone remember hearing air raid sirens being tested? I remember hearing a quick blast of them some time in the early '80s - freaked the shit out of me! Do those sirens still exist? Used to see them here and there on tall lampposts.



Most of the siren network was dismantled in the early 90s AFAIK. It was largely redundant with the end of the Cold War, and in any case, IIRC the powers that be thought that a) with the spread of double glazing houses were more soundproof and a siren would be less conspicuous, and b) TV and radio offered a better way of broadcasting an emergency 'take cover' message. There are still some about, though - I'm pretty sure the thing on top of one of the railway bridges leading out of Waterloo East station is an air raid siren. No idea if it works, but it does look as if it's being maintained.


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## Roadkill (Dec 5, 2011)

isvicthere? said:


> Good point. So not only are we less equal, less affluent and less socially cohesive than during the Cold War, but the likelihood of nuclear conflagration remains.



It's a bit different now, though. There certainly are terrorist groups who'd be willing to detonate a nuclear bomb over a busy city, but they don't have the thousands of warheads at their disposal that the USSR had. If any of said groups were to use a nuke the consequences would be horrific, and there probably would be retaliation, but it'd be unlikely to escalate into the kind of full-scale nuclear war that an exchange between NATO and the Russians would have.

In terms of nuclear-armed states, the one that is IMO most worrying is Pakistan, simply because it's unstable, and it's not beyond the bounds of possibility that it could end up with a bunch of militant Islamists in charge. In that event I wouldn't particularly want to be in India...


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## StraightOuttaQ (Dec 10, 2011)

Roadkill said:


> It's a bit different now, though. There certainly are terrorist groups who'd be willing to detonate a nuclear bomb over a busy city, but they don't have the thousands of warheads at their disposal that the USSR had. If any of said groups were to use a nuke the consequences would be horrific, and there probably would be retaliation, but it'd be unlikely to escalate into the kind of full-scale nuclear war that an exchange between NATO and the Russians would have.
> 
> In terms of nuclear-armed states, the one that is IMO most worrying is Pakistan, simply because it's unstable, and it's not beyond the bounds of possibility that it could end up with a bunch of militant Islamists in charge. In that event I wouldn't particularly want to be in India...



They don't need to detonate a nuclear bomb over a busy city at all, just IN a city. Airbursts are more effective, but fall out and dirty contamination would be just as effective from a groundburst.All you need is a tall enough apartment building and roof access. I always thought tbh, the most effective place to detonate in London would be Canary Wharf - large quantity of high buildings, newspapers based in the area plus massive amounts of banking infrastructure leading to chaos.

Its not states that worry me in terms of nukes - for any state to use it would mean their own annhilation, if not in nuclear terms then in terms of sanctions, invasions, trade embargoes and military action. Its the vast plethora of nuclear material leaking out of the USSR and other ex-Eastern Bloc states that would be of concern - at pains of being unmaintained, it could contaminate deliberately OR accidentally.

As you say, the Pakistan / India border issue is what I consider most likely for any future use (if any).


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## DotCommunist (Dec 11, 2011)

nobody has actually been rumbled buying/seeling a nuke from the former soviet union. Bits of tech and info, yes, but not the actual goods.


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## Kaka Tim (Dec 11, 2011)

The threat of nutjobs detonating a nuke in a major city is not really on the same scale as the very real threat of a global nuclear conflagaration wiping out human civilisation at a stroke -  possibly even all life forms beyond a few insects and microbes.
The former would be terrible - but a long way short of  armegeddon.
The latter event was an active planned possibility for 45 years which we came perilously cloee to making a reality on a number of occasions.


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## Mr Smin (Dec 11, 2011)

Roadkill said:


> Most of the siren network was dismantled in the early 90s AFAIK. It was largely redundant with the end of the Cold War, and in any case, IIRC the powers that be thought that a) with the spread of double glazing houses were more soundproof and a siren would be less conspicuous, and b) TV and radio offered a better way of broadcasting an emergency 'take cover' message. There are still some about, though - I'm pretty sure the thing on top of one of the railway bridges leading out of Waterloo East station is an air raid siren. No idea if it works, but it does look as if it's being maintained.


It's on the bridge near Waterloo IMAX (up close if you take the train from Charing Cross). I wonder if it's just rust-proof rather than being maintained?
TPTB must have much better double-glazing than me!


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## laptop (Dec 11, 2011)

Kaka Tim said:


> The threat of nutjobs detonating a nuke in a major city is not really on the same scale as the very real threat of a global nuclear conflagaration wiping out human civilisation at a stroke -  possibly even all life forms beyond a few insects and microbes.
> The former would be terrible - but a long way short of  armegeddon.
> The latter event was an active planned possibility for 45 years which we came perilously cloee to making a reality on a number of occasions.



And one of the major effects of that "actively planned possibility" was to make the idea of one small bomb in one city seem relatively minor.


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## Roadkill (Dec 11, 2011)

StraightOuttaQ said:


> They don't need to detonate a nuclear bomb over a busy city at all, just IN a city. Airbursts are more effective, but fall out and dirty contamination would be just as effective from a groundburst.All you need is a tall enough apartment building and roof access. I always thought tbh, the most effective place to detonate in London would be Canary Wharf - large quantity of high buildings, newspapers based in the area plus massive amounts of banking infrastructure leading to chaos.



Yup.   Tbh I suspect in is more likely than over as well, but either way the thought is horrific - although, as Kaka Tim says, not on the same scale as the full-on armageddon that seemed all too possible only a decade or so ago.


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## StraightOuttaQ (Dec 11, 2011)

DotCommunist said:


> nobody has actually been rumbled buying/seeling a nuke from the former soviet union. Bits of tech and info, yes, but not the actual goods.



Have you read One Point Safe, by Andrew & Leslie Cockburn? A fascinating and horrifying - if slightly dated read, bearing in mind it was published in 1997. Talks in great depth about the proliferation of The USSR's arsenal post Eastern Bloc split in 91.

The idea of a single detonation - be it a relatively minor fizzle leading to release of radioactive material in a dirty bomb style, or a full on airburst - is horrific enough. The only difference, between 1984 and now, is that there is no AEWS alert when its a suitcase hidden in a car boot. And without a defined target, there's no immediate retaliation. You can nuke a city - you can't nuke an a loner with an ideology.


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## Sigmund Fraud (Dec 12, 2011)

StraightOuttaQ said:


> Its the vast plethora of nuclear material leaking out of the USSR and other ex-Eastern Bloc states that would be of concern - at pains of being unmaintained, it could contaminate deliberately OR accidentally.
> .



Have you seen Countdown to Zero? Goes into some scary cases of nuclear material being intercepted at the Russian / Georgian border (the most likely route to get it out).  Also lists the 70 household items that give a similar radioactive signature at a container port (kitty litter is the best masking material).  One of those films that make you just think how the fuck did we survive the cold war.  For 15 years the entire ground based US arsenal of minuteman missiles could be triggered by a individual who felt like inputting the test code in the launch computer (all zeros!)...and Yeltsin being woken in 1994 and being given the footballski by a general and told they had detected a trident launch of the coast of Norway (it was a weather satellite launch)...lucky for all of us he wasn't pissed.


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## Mumbles274 (Dec 12, 2011)

Mr Smin said:


> It's on the bridge near Waterloo IMAX (up close if you take the train from Charing Cross). I wonder if it's just rust-proof rather than being maintained?
> TPTB must have much better double-glazing than me!


there is an air raid siren on the army camp near me that sounds every friday at 12 noon


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## 8den (Dec 12, 2011)

Possibly the most depressing imdb.com page ever

http://www.imdb.com/name/nm1856457/


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## pogofish (Dec 12, 2011)

Roadkill said:


> Most of the siren network was dismantled in the early 90s AFAIK. It was largely redundant with the end of the Cold War,



Yup - The system was decomissioned in great haste in 1992 when the rest of UKWMO was finally stood down.

The school I worked in at the time had one of these on its roof and it got a quick test about once every two years when an engineer would come-in during the holidays and fire it up for a few seconds. Our siren had been replaced with a bigger/more powerful unit just about a year before, so it only got its installation test.

Article on the system here:

http://www.subbrit.org.uk/rsg/features/cold_war_early_warning_system/index.html

IIRC, a few of the sirens were retained/reassigned to flood warning systems in some areas whilst many were just left in situ to rot - The control gear got ripped out and chucked in the back of a truck but the sirens were going to cost far more to remove than they were ever going to raise in scrap value.


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## Orang Utan (Dec 12, 2011)

8den said:


> Possibly the most depressing imdb.com page ever
> 
> http://www.imdb.com/name/nm1856457/


poor woman didn't get any work after that as she was typecast


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## 19sixtysix (Dec 12, 2011)

Orang Utan said:


> poor woman didn't get any work after that as she was typecast



And the little britain bunch stole her role.


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## Iguana (Dec 12, 2011)

Roadkill said:


> Tbh that's the thing that strikes me most about _Threads_, and all the other nuclear war films, and the bits and bats of research I did in the wake of watching them - that in the event of a nuclear war it'd be best to be fried in the first few minutes, because to survive would be to enter a world in which the living would envy the dead.



Yeah, my parents told me that if nuclear war happened and we didn't die right away their plan was to break into a chemist and rob enough sleeping pills to kill us all fast.  They told me that after explaining what the lyrics of The Sun is Burning meant because I got upset when my dad was singing it.  I think I was 5.


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## StraightOuttaQ (Dec 12, 2011)

Sigmund Fraud said:


> Have you seen Countdown to Zero? Goes into some scary cases of nuclear material being intercepted at the Russian / Georgian border (the most likely route to get it out). Also lists the 70 household items that give a similar radioactive signature at a container port (kitty litter is the best masking material). One of those films that make you just think how the fuck did we survive the cold war. For 15 years the entire ground based US arsenal of minuteman missiles could be triggered by a individual who felt like inputting the test code in the launch computer (all zeros!)...and Yeltsin being woken in 1994 and being given the footballski by a general and told they had detected a trident launch of the coast of Norway (it was a weather satellite launch)...lucky for all of us he wasn't pissed.



Not seen it, would love to. However, the possibility of getting it on disc at a price worthwhile to indulge my curiosity is minimal. (Don't even get me started on watching online, its not going to happen). It was 1977 when they finally changed the launch codes from 0000000.... what madness.


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## StraightOuttaQ (Dec 12, 2011)

Iguana said:


> Yeah, my parents told me that if nuclear war happened and we didn't die right away their plan was to break into a chemist and rob enough sleeping pills to kill us all fast. They told me that after explaining what the lyrics of The Sun is Burning meant because I got upset when my dad was singing it. I think I was 5.



In the book "World War III" (a hypothetical scenario by Hackett) which outlines a nuclear attack on B'ham, its posited that the Nuke goes off over Winson Green. Useless location. I'd go for Spaghetti Junction, which would knock out the rail network (The Bham-Sutton+ Bham-Walsall lines run under it, used for intercity routes) plus the motorway infastructure plus its about 2 miles from Bham city centre. Going to school about a mile away I was sort of glad for - I'd be among the first to be incinerated, as any possibility of living after the event is not one I ever wanted to entertain....

If I did survive a singular nuke, My escape route involved staying off the roads, and walking using the by then mostly abandoned railway lines...


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## Mr Smin (Dec 12, 2011)

8den said:


> Possibly the most depressing imdb.com page ever
> 
> http://www.imdb.com/name/nm1856457/


There's a link from there to an item about her taking the IMDB charts by storm - excellent.


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## Sigmund Fraud (Dec 13, 2011)

I sa





StraightOuttaQ said:


> Not seen it, would love to. However, the possibility of getting it on disc at a price worthwhile to indulge my curiosity is minimal. (Don't even get me started on watching online, its not going to happen). It was 1977 when they finally changed the launch codes from 0000000.... what madness.



I saw it on more 4 about 2 months ago, I'm sure it will be repeated soon.


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## StraightOuttaQ (Dec 13, 2011)

Sigmund Fraud said:


> I saw it on more 4 about 2 months ago, I'm sure it will be repeated soon.



Living in a life without broadcast television, which I don't miss, thats going to be difficult!


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## Orang Utan (Dec 13, 2011)

Watch it online then!


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## Roadkill (Feb 25, 2012)

Bump. A load of papers from the early 80s related to nuclear war planning have just been released under the 30-year-rule.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/art...lans-nuclear-armageddon-finally-revealed.html

Apologies for the Fail link, but it's not actually too bad an article, although its author doesn't seem to have read _The Secret State_ and thinks a lot of this is more surprising than it actually is.  Many of the comments are batty, as you'd expect, though.


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## Mr Smin (Feb 25, 2012)

Christ - had to wash my browser out with soap after that.

Usual crap from the Heil. All they left out was an analysis of the effects of an apocalypse on house prices, and some discussion of whether nuclear bombs cause cancer. And so many linked stories about women in bikinis I though I might be on a Richard Desmond website.


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## laptop (Feb 25, 2012)

Fail said:
			
		

> And there the exercise ends, with the world poised on the brink of nuclear armageddon.


 
Eh?

The _whole point_ of those exercises was to practice the "response" to nuclear attack. All the _Fail_ appears to have read is the scenario setup - unless the later bits have been withheld.


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## 8den (Mar 17, 2012)

Iguana said:


> Yeah, my parents told me that if nuclear war happened and we didn't die right away their plan was to break into a chemist and rob enough sleeping pills to kill us all fast. They told me that after explaining what the lyrics of The Sun is Burning meant because I got upset when my dad was singing it. I think I was 5.


 
We're never letting your parents babysit.


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## frogwoman (Jan 30, 2013)

I saw it a few days ago, very disturbing. It could easily have happened.


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## King Biscuit Time (Jan 30, 2013)

I bought this just before Christmas







Explaining in detail what would happen if/when a nuclear bomb goes off a mile away from my house. Fucking petrifying.


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## marty21 (Jan 30, 2013)

Growing up in the 70s possible nuclear war  was something you thought about - #happychildhood


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## Mr Smin (Jan 30, 2013)

marty21 said:


> Growing up in the 70s possible nuclear war was something you thought about - #happychildhood


Still current in the 80s. On a school trip to the Science Museum in about 1986, at a display where buttons made lights go on on a map, my mate immediately shouted "i challenge you to a game of tactical nuclear bombing".


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## youngian (Jan 31, 2013)

One of the reasons Threads was commissioned was the mid 60s War Game, which the BBC shelved from government pressure at the time was an understatement

Some less than convincing protect and survive information from the Barret helicopter man



It wouldn't be much less convinving if Jimmy Saville and Tufty had led the campaign


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## SpookyFrank (Feb 1, 2013)

All that protect and survive stuff is genius. What do you do when you see the flash? Hide under a fucking blanket. Never mind the fact you won't be able to find a blanket if your eyeballs have already melted; or the fact that a blanket and a stack of matresses provides about as much protection from radiation as a string vest does from the vacuum of space; or the fact that you really, really, really don't want to be one of the people left alive after a nuclear war.

I mean, if the power of nuclear weapons can be defeated by blankets, tinned food and a little Dunkirk spirit why even bother dropping them on other people?


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## Reno (Feb 1, 2013)

This is a popular documentary from the 80s, all about public information films and how the US government downplayed the dangers:


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## Idris2002 (Feb 1, 2013)

Reno said:


> This is a popular documentary from the 80s, all about public information films and how the US government downplayed the dangers:




wildtangent/ There's a similar one about 50s sex ed films, isn't there? /wild tangent


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## Reno (Feb 1, 2013)

Dunno, there could be. I remember Atomic Cafe because it was quite big for a theatrically released documentary at the time and I saw it at the cinema, which I didn't do a lot for documentaries then.


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## Mr Smin (Feb 1, 2013)

SpookyFrank said:


> All that protect and survive stuff is genius. What do you do when you see the flash? Hide under a fucking blanket. Never mind the fact you won't be able to find a blanket if your eyeballs have already melted; or the fact that a blanket and a stack of matresses provides about as much protection from radiation as a string vest does from the vacuum of space; or the fact that you really, really, really don't want to be one of the people left alive after a nuclear war.
> 
> I mean, if the power of nuclear weapons can be defeated by blankets, tinned food and a little Dunkirk spirit why even bother dropping them on other people?


 
Measures which are pointless in a total nuclear war can be the difference between life and death in a scenario where only a small number of bombs are detonated.
A blanket and a stack of mattresses will protect you from blast debris to some extent if you are a good distance from the epicentre, painting windows white will make a difference regarding thermal flash even if they are blown out by the blast wave immediately after.
For some very moving insight have a read of http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hiroshima_(book)


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## Belushi (Feb 1, 2013)

I'm pretty sure the Protect and Survive stuff was just intended to give folk something to do while we waited for annhilation, rather than have us out on the streets rioting and lynching the leaders who'd brought death and destruction down on us.


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## Mr Smin (Feb 1, 2013)

Belushi said:


> I'm pretty sure the Protect and Survive stuff was just intended to give folk something to do while we waited for annhilation, rather than have us out on the streets rioting and lynching the leaders who'd brought death and destruction down on us.


Half and half. There was/is a theoretical possibility of 'limited' nuclear war so P&S plays up the survivability factor partly to stave off social collapse and partly because it really will increase the total number of survivors (at least in the short term). A greatly reduced economy will still need a proportionate number of workers to struggle on.
Slightly off topic but in World War Z there's a contribution from a guy managing the recovery effort who laments the abundance of people with "assistant" and "executive" in their pre-war job titles, and the difficulty of finding someone who can replace a broken window pane or unblock a toilet.


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## Diamond (Nov 29, 2013)

Watched this the other night - bloody terrifying.

It all feels horribly relevant now in light of this:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-25155605


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## butchersapron (Nov 29, 2013)

Diamond said:


> Watched this the other night - bloody terrifying.
> 
> It all feels horribly relevant now in light of this:
> 
> http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-25155605


And this.

Are you ever not in a state of easily manipulated paranoia?


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## Diamond (Mar 5, 2014)

butchersapron said:


> And this.
> 
> Are you ever not in a state of easily manipulated paranoia?



Care to reconsider?


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## butchersapron (Mar 5, 2014)

Not really no. Not when you leap from demanding Iran is bombed right this second because OMG they're going to nuke us!! to OMG the euro is going to collapse this week and the whole economy is going to crash!!


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## moody (Mar 5, 2014)

just watched it on youtube. grim.


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## Johnny Canuck3 (Mar 5, 2014)

Belushi said:


> I'm pretty sure the Protect and Survive stuff was just intended to give folk something to do while we waited for annhilation, rather than have us out on the streets rioting and lynching the leaders who'd brought death and destruction down on us.



Couldn't get at them; the top leaders would all have been in nuclear-hardened bunkers while the rest of us were outside burning and starving.


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## tombowler (Mar 5, 2014)

Odd and disturbing film, a friend of mine found a usb stick lying on the floor in a car park in The Czech republic a few years back and this movie was on it. Freaked him out a bit


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## farmerbarleymow (Mar 5, 2014)

I vividly remember that film - the only film or telly programme that has given me nightmares. I'll have to watch it again.  

It's weird thinking back to what it was like 30 years ago when there was this underlying fear of nuclear war. We got on with our lives, but it is interesting to think of whether this fear had any influence on people living through that period, as someone has said up thread.


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## Orang Utan (Mar 5, 2014)

I would certainly have made more effort at school.
I feel the same despondency now though, except it's not nuclear war that I fear but just economic collapse, extreme weather, food riots etc etc


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## King Biscuit Time (Mar 5, 2014)




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## RedDragon (Mar 5, 2014)

I beleive the cold war gave us punk.


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## Sprocket. (Mar 5, 2014)

I remember threads very well, living at the time about six miles (as the blast flies) from RAF Strike Command at Bawtry and RAF Finningley. I almost cancelled the milk!
Before this, in 1974 we were given a screening of the brilliant yet chilling War Game, made by the BBC in 1965.
This was about three months before we left school and I remember one of the English teachers saying good luck as we sat there after it finished.
Nice.


----------



## Sprocket. (Mar 5, 2014)

RedDragon said:


> I beleive the cold war gave us punk.



That and the depressive economic future turned many of us into embittered, nihilistic, teenagers.
Not been a teenager for decades but still have a fair share of bitterness and nihilism!


----------



## moody (Mar 6, 2014)

tombowler said:


> Odd and disturbing film, a friend of mine found a usb stick lying on the floor in a car park in The Czech republic a few years back and this movie was on it. Freaked him out a bit



wtf!


----------



## tombowler (Mar 6, 2014)

moody said:


> wtf!


I know he asked me if I knew it. As at first he had suspicions this was an unknown film so I told him about the the time it was made and the fear we lived under. 
It was different in Cz this was a time teenagers got certificates for being able to throw grenades to repel the capitalists and a false version of the end of ww2 was propagated by the puppet govt. they had more to fear than just the holocaust. 

But it was really odd a copy should be found on a usb stick over here.


----------



## editor (Mar 6, 2014)

moody said:


> just watched it on youtube. grim.


It still chills to the bone.


----------



## Frances Lengel (Mar 7, 2014)

I didn't know Barry Hines had anything to do with it. He deserves far more recognition than he gets.


----------



## Pickman's model (Mar 7, 2014)

Frances Lengel said:


> I didn't know Barry Hines had anything to do with it. He deserves far more recognition than he gets.


wasn't he one of the companions in dr who?

e2a: no, that was frazer hines


----------



## editor (Jul 18, 2014)

Here's a better version of the film. Not one to watch if you're feeling a little down, methinks, but a fantastic piece of cinema.


----------



## Treacle Toes (Jul 18, 2014)

editor said:


> Here's a better version of the film. Not one to watch if you're feeling a little down, methinks, but a fantastic piece of cinema.




I watched it a few times over the years. It's very well done.


----------



## Bakunin (Jul 18, 2014)

Rutita1 said:


> It's very well done.



So is most of Sheffield when the bomb goes off.


----------



## harpo (Jul 18, 2014)

It's the sheer normality of life beforehand that provides the stark contrast.  Despite that fact that it's hardly the most horrific aspect of the film, the milk bottles blowing to powder on the doorstep is a scene that has stuck in my mind all these years.


----------



## Belushi (Jul 18, 2014)

While I'm glad younger generations haven't grown up with the very real fear of a nuclear holocaust the way my generation did, all those weapons are still out there, things go wrong and our leaders could still blow us all to kingdom come.


----------



## DotCommunist (Jul 18, 2014)

didn't need to see this thread after seeing all the sabre rattling over the downed airliner


----------



## dylanredefined (Jul 18, 2014)

Johnny Canuck3 said:


> Couldn't get at them; the top leaders would all have been in nuclear-hardened bunkers while the rest of us were outside burning and starving.



 Each targeted with 2 or 3 weapons cos fuck you. By the end of the cold war the USSR had more missles than targets even had a few spare to chuck at neutral countries to make sure they didn't end up on top. Rumours everyone had a missle aimed at the swiss cannot be proved ,but,why wouldn't you?


----------



## Belushi (Jul 18, 2014)

dylanredefined said:


> Each targeted with 2 or 3 weapons cos fuck you. By the end of the cold war the USSR had more missles than targets even had a few spare to chuck at neutral countries to make sure they didn't end up on top. Rumours everyone had a missle aimed at the swiss cannot be proved ,but,why wouldn't you?



Both sides planned to keep fighting after a nuclear exchange, and would take out neutral countries major assets to prevent them aiding the enemy, and as you say becoming to stop them becoming the new leading powers.


----------



## laptop (Jul 18, 2014)

Belushi said:


> Both sides planned to keep fighting after a nuclear exchange, and would take out neutral countries major assets to prevent them aiding the enemy, and as you say becoming to stop them becoming the new leading powers.



I think I've mentioned this before, but back in the 1980s the then head of the Home Defence College admitted to me, on live radio, that he was just as worried about the US nuking runways in the UK to deny the Russians the use of them.


----------



## Belushi (Jul 18, 2014)

That doesn't surprise me one little bit.


----------



## T & P (Jul 19, 2014)

I had never heard of this film until I came to England and became a member of these boards. I got to watch it last night inspired by this thread. Powerful and grim as fuck, but compelling all the same.

I kept thinking "if I were a survivor I'd fuck off out of Britain and towards Southern Europe sharpish. It'd almost certainly have also been nuked out, but at least it'd be a bit warmer and not so grim".


----------



## DotCommunist (Jul 19, 2014)

it would be no warmer. The cold is caused by all the shit thrown up and blocking out the sun, a nuclear winter.


----------



## Belushi (Jul 19, 2014)

There would have been very very few survivors in Britain if NATO and the Warsaw Pact had fought a nuclear war.  The UK and Germany would have been glassed over.


----------



## Bakunin (Jul 19, 2014)

laptop said:


> I think I've mentioned this before, but back in the 1980s the then head of the Home Defence College admitted to me, on live radio, that he was just as worried about the US nuking runways in the UK to deny the Russians the use of them.



Scorched earth, a standard military tactic when in retreat. Same principle as blowing up munitions stockpiles, burning food stores, sabotaging vehicles and weaponry and destroying infrastructure by blowing up bridges, power stations, port facilities and so on.


----------



## TheHoodedClaw (Jul 19, 2014)

T & P said:


> I kept thinking "if I were a survivor I'd fuck off out of Britain and towards Southern Europe sharpish. It'd almost certainly have also been nuked out, but at least it'd be a bit warmer and not so grim".



You'd probably have to have swam across the Channel.


----------



## farmerbarleymow (Jul 19, 2014)

TheHoodedClaw said:


> You'd probably have to have swam across the Channel.



Or floated on some radioactive debris...


----------



## T & P (Jul 19, 2014)

Radioactive lilos FTW


----------



## farmerbarleymow (Jul 19, 2014)

T & P said:


> Radioactive lilos FTW


 
Glow in the dark lilos.


----------



## Mr Smin (Jul 22, 2014)

TheHoodedClaw said:


> You'd probably have to have swam across the Channel.



Anyone with a boat and some notice would have left port so yeah. You can use a boat as a fallout shelter. Sweep crap off the deck and it sinks in the water, which keeps you safe in the short term but won't do your future fish supper any good.


----------



## editor (Jul 22, 2014)

Mr Smin said:


> Anyone with a boat and some notice would have left port so yeah. You can use a boat as a fallout shelter. Sweep crap off the deck and it sinks in the water, which keeps you safe in the short term but won't do your future fish supper any good.


I think your best bet would have been to be directly under the oncoming missile.


----------



## T & P (Jul 22, 2014)

Mr Smin said:


> Anyone with a boat and some notice would have left port so yeah. You can use a boat as a fallout shelter. Sweep crap off the deck and it sinks in the water, which keeps you safe in the short term but won't do your future fish supper any good.


Fuck, I don't consider myself a handyman but I reckon if I was really desperate to cross the channel I could fashion myself a basic raft or find a useable boat stored in in a garage. Most coastal towns must have hundreds stored away, their owners long dead and gone.


----------



## Sigmund Fraud (Jul 22, 2014)

Anyone thinking of doing a runner to avoid the pending nuclear holocaust might not have got very far. None other than Ken Livingston asked the national civil defence committee in the 80s what plans were in place for refugees leaving London just before kick off. The short and stark reply was anyone trying to leave the smoke would be turned around...and if they didn't comply they would be shot. Its really great when you pay in taxes for nuclear weapons you didn't want and then find that you'll be shot by an army you also paid for when you try to avoid them.


----------



## Mr Smin (Jul 23, 2014)

Sigmund Fraud said:


> Anyone thinking of doing a runner to avoid the pending nuclear holocaust might not have got very far. None other than Ken Livingston asked the national civil defence committee in the 80s what plans were in place for refugees leaving London just before kick off. The short and stark reply was anyone trying to leave the smoke would be turned around...and if they didn't comply they would be shot. Its really great when you pay in taxes for nuclear weapons you didn't want and then find that you'll be shot by an army you also paid for when you try to avoid them.


That plan is still in place. Applies to situations where the public may be infected with a biological weapon, or contaminated in some other way too.
Actually, containment of the public in a chem/bio/nuclear event is one of the scenarios that are included in Glastonbury Festival's disaster planning. I once took part in a Fire Service decontamination exercise on site during the festival which involved waiting around for ages and then having a cold shower from a fire appliance water supply.


----------



## Belushi (Jul 23, 2014)

Mr Smin said:


> That plan is still in place. Applies to situations where the public may be infected with a biological weapon, or contaminated in some other way too.



Zombies


----------



## sleaterkinney (Jul 23, 2014)

I'm reading Command and Control by Eric Schlosser at the moment, it's a good read about nuclear weapons and how close we could have come to an accidental detonation, also about how we relied on them to keep the commies at bay in the cold war.


----------



## Idris2002 (Jul 24, 2014)

sleaterkinney said:


> I'm reading Command and Control by Eric Schlosser at the moment, it's a good read about nuclear weapons and how close we could have come to an accidental detonation, also about how we relied on them to keep the commies at bay in the cold war.



I've seen that on sale around the place and always thought "nah". . . you may have convinced me otherwise.


----------



## laptop (Jul 25, 2014)

Idris2002 said:


> I've seen that on sale around the place and always thought "nah". . . you may have convinced me otherwise.



Even dryer, from my bookshelf: http://www.foreignaffairs.com/artic...rre/the-command-and-control-of-nuclear-forces


----------



## pogofish (Jul 25, 2014)

Mr Smin said:


> That plan is still in place. Applies to situations where the public may be infected with a biological weapon, or contaminated in some other way too.



No, the UK War Plan that informed Threads was deactivated soon after the end of the Cold War, 1992 IIRC.

They replaced it with a different one of course for just the reasons you mention but the way they virtually eliminated the Civil Defence aspects of the previous plan for cost-savings suggests it could be very different - except that ordinary people still get the shitty end of an even shorter stick!


----------



## likesfish (Jul 27, 2014)

Tbf enough nukes would hit the uk to make being a refugee or worrying about civil defence irrelevant
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-477163/How-Cold-War-turned-Britain-Armageddon.html
Around 400 megatonnes were coming are way


----------



## pogofish (Jul 27, 2014)

Yup.  I think they had given-up hope of anything but a tiny survival by some time in the 1960s, which is when the plan was first modified significantly - and again in the 80s but by then, most authorities only considered it window-dressing by the Thatcher Govt.

I always liked how Aberdeenshire Council deactivated their old sunken bunker as required under the new plan and built themselves a nice new "secure" one, with a bloody great double glazed window in it to watch the advancing devastation - Its now their IT training centre!


----------



## Belushi (Aug 6, 2014)

A relevant article by Chomsky in the Guardian

http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/aug/06/hiroshima-day-nuclear-weapons-cold-war-usa-bomb


----------



## Roadkill (Aug 6, 2014)

pogofish said:


> No, the UK War Plan that informed Threads was deactivated soon after the end of the Cold War, 1992 IIRC.



It was, yes.  The Warning and Monitoring Network was culled as part of public spending cuts during the early 90s recession, and with it the air-raid siren network.  A lot of civil defence planning had long been abandoned by then - in the 60s, IIRC - because with the advent of H-bombs it was a safe bet that the devastation would be so great as to make it pretty much pointless.



likesfish said:


> Around 400 megatonnes were coming are way



Square Leg, the table-top exercise that produced the scenario considered most likely in the early 80s, and which _Threads_ was based on, assumed 200 or thereabouts.  Still enough to obliterate most built-up areas and kill half the population at a stroke, though.


----------



## pogofish (Aug 6, 2014)

Roadkill said:


> and with it the air-raid siren network.  A lot of civil defence planning had long been abandoned by then - in the 60s, IIRC



Yup - The school I worked-in in till the early 90s had a big emergency siren on its roof, built in the late 1960s - I remember it being replaced and tested, probably around 1990, so whoever got that scrap got a virtually new machine.  

Aside from Civil Defence, I've also heard tales of a major "Game change" as far as defence provision went - around 1977/78, when it seems they greatly reduced the numbers of men to be kept alive through any nuclear strike - it looks like they were paring away any hopes/expectations of maintaining any viable country/form of government even then?


----------



## laptop (Aug 6, 2014)

Roadkill said:


> A lot of civil defence planning had long been abandoned by then - in the 60s, IIRC - because with the advent of H-bombs it was a safe bet that the devastation would be so great as to make it pretty much pointless.



In the early 1950s construction of a mass of hidey-holes for government and the military to hide from A-bombs was coming along nicely - the predecessors of the Regional Seat of Government bunkers, the massive "Rotor" radar-control bunkers, the secret tunnel that runs from Club Row to Holborn and beyond...

Then the Soviet Union tested H-bombs large enough to blow the whole lot out of the ground. They carried on building most of them, though...


----------



## Roadkill (Aug 6, 2014)

pogofish said:


> Aside from Civil Defence, I've also heard tales of a major "Game change" as far as defence provision went - around 1977/78, when it seems they greatly reduced the numbers of men to be kept alive through any nuclear strike - it looks like they were paring away any hopes/expectations of maintaining any viable country/form of government even then?



I've not looked into this for a few years now so my memory is a little hazy, but my guess is that 1977/8 was just a matter of spending cuts post-1976 and the IMF loan.  IIRC the real step change was in the 60s, when they basically gave up on civil defence.  There was always an intention to keep some form of government going, though, hence the regional command posts and the central government bunker at Corsham.


----------



## pogofish (Aug 6, 2014)

laptop said:


> Then the Soviet Union tested H-bombs large enough to blow the whole lot out of the ground. They carried on building most of them, though...



A lot of the earlier Rotors were only built to withstand heavy conventional bombing and were just retrofitted to deal with fallout, not a full-on strike - but they kept-on building, right up to the R12s, which were being constructed into the early 1970s (and there is stil at least one R12 that has not been declassified to this day)!  Ain't it wonderful how even the high likelihood of failure in a nuclear war was not enough to cancel the construction contracts!


----------



## laptop (Aug 6, 2014)

pogofish said:


> A lot of the earlier Rotors were only built to withstand heavy conventional bombing and were just retrofitted to deal with fallout, not a full-on strike - but they kept-on building, right up to the R12s, which were being constructed into the early 1970s!  Ain't it wonderful how even the high likelihood of failure in a nuclear war was not enough to cancel the construction contracts!



Have you seen the book _Cold War_ from English Heritage?


----------



## pogofish (Aug 6, 2014)

laptop said:


> Have you seen the book _Cold War_ from English Heritage?



No - is it worth a look?


----------



## Roadkill (Aug 6, 2014)

editor said:


> I think your best bet would have been to be directly under the oncoming missile.









'I know where I'm gonna be if they do drop the bomb: pissed out my mind and straight underneath it.'


----------



## laptop (Aug 6, 2014)

pogofish said:


> No - is it worth a look?



For any bunker spotter, most certainly 

(I had a quick look for references to the Bishopsgate-Holborn cable tunnel and haven't found any online. I'll have to dig out Duncan Campbell's printed account of taking a folding bike down the access cover at Club Row one Boxing Day in the 1970s...)


----------



## pogofish (Aug 6, 2014)

Mr Smin said:


> Anyone with a boat and some notice would have left port so yeah. You can use a boat as a fallout shelter. Sweep crap off the deck and it sinks in the water, which keeps you safe in the short term but won't do your future fish supper any good.



Three of Caledonian Macbraynes Scottish Island Ferries (Columba, Hebrides and Clansman) were built as seagoing command posts - With extensive washdown systems, filtration and extra accommodation. They were expected to put well-out to sea and stay there if a strike happened.  When eventually they ripped-out the protected accommodation, the ships capacities increased by nearly half - from 600 to 870 passengers!

One is still sailing today if you have deep pockets:

http://www.undiscoveredscotland.co.uk/hebridean/princess/index.html


----------



## pogofish (Aug 6, 2014)

laptop said:


> (I had a quick look for references to the Bishopsgate-Holborn cable tunnel and haven't found any online. I'll have to dig out Duncan Campbell's printed account of taking a folding bike down the access cover at Club Row one Boxing Day in the 1970s...)



A friend's brother worked extensively with Campbell in the 80s and 90s - he is a mine of interesting tales!


----------



## Roadkill (Aug 6, 2014)

pogofish said:


> Three of Caledonian Macbraynes Scottish Island Ferries (Columba, Hebrides and Clansman) were built as seagoing command posts - With extensive washdown systems, filtration and extra accommodation. They were expected to put well-out to sea and stay there if a strike happened.  When eventually they ripped-out the protected accommodation, the ships capacities increased by nearly half - from 600 to 870 passengers!
> 
> One is still sailing today if you have deep pockets:
> 
> http://www.undiscoveredscotland.co.uk/hebridean/princess/index.html



Blimey, I didn't know about them!


----------



## pogofish (Aug 6, 2014)

Roadkill said:


> Blimey, I didn't know about them!



Two were built to the full spec but it seems very likely that the third was only partially fitted-out, as a reserve/economy measure.

This is quite possibly one of the main reasons why the govt kept the ongoing financial disaster that was CalMac afloat during the 70s and 80s.

There is another tale I've heard about a different part of their business and its role in cold-war provision that is so staggeringly ridiculous that it might actually be true.  Its so daft, surely nobody would make it-up!


----------



## TheHoodedClaw (Aug 6, 2014)

pogofish said:


> There is another tale I've heard about a different part of their business and its role in cold-war provision that is so staggeringly ridiculous that it might actually be true.  Its so daft, surely nobody would make it-up!



You can't leave us dangling like that!


----------



## laptop (Aug 6, 2014)

pogofish said:


> This is quite possibly one of the main reasons why the govt kept the ongoing financial disaster that was CalMac afloat during the 70s and 80s.



That would explain a great deal...



pogofish said:


> There is another tale I've heard about a different part of their business and its role in cold-war provision that is so staggeringly ridiculous that it might actually be true.  Its so daft, surely nobody would make it-up!



Gwaaaaaaaan!


----------



## Roadkill (Aug 6, 2014)

TheHoodedClaw said:


> You can't leave us dangling like that!



Indeed.  Go on, pogofish ...


----------



## pogofish (Aug 6, 2014)

No, its seriously bonkers - Not till some sort of confirmation of even the possibility appears somewhere else!


----------



## Gingerman (Aug 6, 2014)

Watched Threads when it was first broadcast, couldn't sleep that night,frightened the beJasus out of me.......


----------



## Sigmund Fraud (Aug 6, 2014)

Roadkill said:


> .
> Square Leg, the table-top exercise that produced the scenario considered most likely in the early 80s, and which _Threads_ was based on, assumed 200 or thereabouts.  Still enough to obliterate most built-up areas and kill half the population at a stroke, though.



The snappily titled *Greater London Area War Risk Study (GLAWARS)* from 1986 examines two main attack scenarios, one with 9MT hitting the capital and one with 12MT. The chiling conclusion (and I stupidly read the whole book of 20 odd separate studies with a terrible flu on the go) was that anything more than 9MT was unnecessary;  9MT was enough to destroy 97% of all housing stock in all London boroughs and kill 70% of the population instantly with the survival rate dropping down to just tens of thousands after attack +5days. 12MT just made more ash.


----------



## Roadkill (Aug 6, 2014)

Sigmund Fraud said:


> The snappily titled *Greater London Area War Risk Study (GLAWARS)* from 1986 examines two main attack scenarios, one with 9MT hitting the capital and one with 12MT. The chiling conclusion (and I stupidly read the whole book of 20 odd separate studies with a terrible flu on the go) was that anything more than 9MT was unnecessary;  9MT was enough to destroy 97% of all housing stock in all London boroughs and kill 70% of the population instantly with the survival rate dropping down to just tens of thousands after attack +5days. 12MT just made more ash.



I can believe that.  As this Q.E.D. episode from 1982, 'A Guide to Armageddon,' makes clear, 1mt would be more than enough to finish off most of the city:



This was made by Mick Jackson, and a few bits of footage look familiar, as they were recycled for _Threads_ a couple of years later.


----------



## Mumbles274 (Aug 6, 2014)

there's a few other things on youtube i've now been watching, having watched a fair bit of Threads again earlier.. once it gets to the radiation sickness i kinda lose interest.. and that applies to the others too.. I find it more interesting as a historical reflection of how MAD could have occurred, wathcing through the lens of time.. and what they see the build up would be, not only in terms of the scenarios that cause it but the responses.. emergency plans etc.. 

just started watching this one


----------



## Mumbles274 (Aug 6, 2014)

agh, and now distracted i am reading wikipedia.. and find this..

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stanislav_Petrov


----------



## dylanredefined (Aug 6, 2014)

Mumbles274 said:


> agh, and now distracted i am reading wikipedia.. and find this..
> 
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stanislav_Petrov


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vasili_Arkhipov

 At least twice Russians saved the world.


----------



## Santino (Nov 11, 2014)

A lecture/discussion on Threads at the University of London next week: http://www.history.ac.uk/sites/history.ac.uk/files/2014_threads_poster_v2.pdf


----------



## not-bono-ever (Nov 11, 2014)

There is a shop called threads on the Bellend road in peckham

Even the name spooks me


----------



## Kaka Tim (Nov 11, 2014)

_Bellend road_ though ....


----------



## The Boy (Nov 11, 2014)

Kaka Tim said:


> _Bellend road_ though ....



Glad it wasn't just me .


----------



## Orang Utan (Nov 11, 2014)

It's actually Bellenden Road but it is stuffed full of rampant bellends paying £4 for stale chewy bread.


----------



## Roadkill (Mar 21, 2016)

Bump.







Barry Hines died last week.  RIP.


----------



## farmerbarleymow (Nov 4, 2017)

Watching it now - found a download with Italian subtitles - a minor irritation.


----------



## A380 (Nov 5, 2017)

farmerbarleymow said:


> Watching it now - found a download with Italian subtitles - a minor irritation.



“Cazzo a me. che era brillante!” 

?


----------



## farmerbarleymow (Nov 5, 2017)

A380 said:


> “Cazzo a me. che era brillante!”
> 
> ?



Can't work out the exact translation of that phrase, but breaking it into two parts throws up these results:

Cazzo a me - Translation into English - examples Italian | Reverso Context 

che era brillante - Translation into English - examples Italian | Reverso Context


----------



## A380 (Nov 5, 2017)

farmerbarleymow said:


> Can't work out the exact translation of that phrase, but breaking it into two parts throws up these results:
> 
> Cazzo a me - Translation into English - examples Italian | Reverso Context
> 
> che era brillante - Translation into English - examples Italian | Reverso Context


“Fuck me, that was bright! “


----------



## Lancman (Nov 6, 2017)

It's available on TPB. Or so I'm told.


----------



## discobastard (Nov 25, 2018)

Remastered version recently released with extra documentaries about the production, how they shot the crowd scenes, special effects etc.

Still one of the best and most horrific pieces of television I've ever seen.


----------



## Reno (Nov 25, 2018)

This horrified me unlike any film or tv programme since. I haven’t rewatched it since it was first shown, more because I think it wouldn’t effect me as much rather than because it would traumatise me all over.


----------



## discobastard (Nov 25, 2018)

Reno said:


> This horrified me unlike any film or tv programme since. I haven’t rewatched it since it was first shown, more because I think it wouldn’t effect me as much rather than because it would traumatise me all over.



It affected me almost as much, with the exception that I'm middle aged now rather than the teenager that watched it when living near Sheffield.  

Didn't get the nightmares this time but struggled to concentrate at work the next day.


----------



## TruXta (Nov 25, 2018)

I started watching it on Youtube a while ago but I think some bits were missing so I gave up just as the bombs were about to start exploding. I can't not watch it after all I've heard about it, but I suspect I might regret it a bit if I do.


----------



## belboid (Nov 26, 2018)

blimey, it's been more than ten years since i mentioned that my old flat gets blown up in this. I may still have a Betamax copy of it somewhere.


----------



## skyscraper101 (Nov 26, 2018)

It's a harrowing film alright. I love the way it captures the mundane 80s of the north, and ends up with the collapse of all society to the point of basic language abilities and medieval land toiling. I'd have liked if it spent more time in the post nuclear war era, 20-30 years down the line, rather than all the time given over to the pre-war period with the couple, but nevertheless, it's a great watch.


----------



## farmerbarleymow (Nov 26, 2018)

TruXta said:


> I started watching it on Youtube a while ago but I think some bits were missing so I gave up just as the bombs were about to start exploding. I can't not watch it after all I've heard about it, but I suspect I might regret it a bit if I do.



Definitely worth watching in full.


----------



## editor (Sep 23, 2019)

From the comments: 



> As an American, our film The Day After was like a day at Disneyland compared to Threads


----------



## editor (Sep 23, 2019)

Still as powerful


----------



## editor (Sep 23, 2019)

From YouTube comments: 



> America:  "We made a movie called 'The Day After'.  It's as brutal and horrific depiction of a nuclear war as you can make."
> UK:  "Hold my pint."


----------



## Orang Utan (Sep 23, 2019)

Threads was first broadcast today 35 years ago and is now available free online:
Threads 1984 : Free Download, Borrow, and Streaming : Internet Archive
Great thread on it here on one my favourite Twitter accounts:


----------



## farmerbarleymow (Jan 17, 2020)

I've found a QED documentary I remember vividly from 1982 - about a 1MT airburst above St Pauls in London.  Cheerful stuff - 'you're all going to die' basically.


----------



## StoneRoad (Jan 17, 2020)

The best place to be in even a limited nuclear exchange is ground zero.

That was my father's considered opinion.


I saw _Threads _before it was broadcast by the BBC. Still terrifies me.


----------



## StoneRoad (Jan 17, 2020)

_Where the wind blows_ was another one of these ... the Raymond Briggs animation actually made the message more rather than less stark.


----------



## farmerbarleymow (Jan 17, 2020)

StoneRoad said:


> The best place to be in even a limited nuclear exchange is ground zero.


I've probably said before, but I was glad I lived in Teesside in the 80s.  Guaranteed destructruction given the concentration of chemical/steel industry/nuclear power.  The bombs would've left a five-mile wide crater.


----------



## andysays (Jul 27, 2020)

Posted on youtube recently for your viewing pleasure


----------



## Reno (Jul 27, 2020)

andysays said:


> Posted on youtube recently for your viewing_ trauma_



Corrected that for you.


----------



## Sprocket. (Jul 27, 2020)

Probably a pre-emptive strike for what’s coming after COVID-19.


----------



## andysays (Jul 27, 2020)

Reno said:


> Corrected that for you.


I did use the word "pleasure" slightly tongue in cheek, but wasn't sure which emoji would best convey that


----------



## Steel Icarus (Jul 27, 2020)

We need the upside down smiley. It's very versatile.


----------



## Mr.Bishie (Jul 27, 2020)

Just watched an hour - still as grim today as when it was first shown.


----------



## steveo87 (Feb 23, 2021)

(Apologies for the bump) 
So as mentioned on another thread, I watched this for the first time last week. 

Just out of curiosity,  how long will it take for me not to feel totally fucked up by this film? 
I've just got home from work and the bus I was on had some kind if brake issue that sound exactly like the buzz of the 'imminent attack machine' thing.


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## Orang Utan (Feb 23, 2021)

steveo87 said:


> (Apologies for the bump)
> So as mentioned on another thread, I watched this for the first time last week.
> 
> Just out of curiosity,  how long will it take for me not to feel totally fucked up by this film?
> I've just got home from work and the bus I was on had some kind if brake issue that sound exactly like the buzz of the 'imminent attack machine' thing.


In my experience, at least 35 years


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## steveo87 (Feb 23, 2021)

Feck.


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## editor (Feb 23, 2021)

Mr.Bishie said:


> Just watched an hour - still as grim today as when it was first shown.


It's a brilliant film. Unsettling. Bleak,. Frightening. And it shows what happens to ordinary people when some cunts safe in their bunkers declare a war.


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## farmerbarleymow (Feb 24, 2021)

steveo87 said:


> Just out of curiosity, how long will it take for me not to feel totally fucked up by this film?


It is a grim film, but you should be OK after a few weeks.


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## 19sixtysix (Feb 24, 2021)

farmerbarleymow said:


> It is a grim film, but you should be OK after a few weeks.



But beware of part time fire stations using air raid sirens as a call out. The was distinctly unfunny when I had watched threads as a 15yr old and our local firestation was part time.


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## 8ball (Feb 24, 2021)

steveo87 said:


> Just out of curiosity,  how long will it take for me not to feel totally fucked up by this film?



Have you read _Bury My Heart At Wounded Knee?_
Less long than recovering from that.


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## Orang Utan (Feb 24, 2021)

19sixtysix said:


> But beware of part time fire stations using air raid sirens as a call out. The was distinctly unfunny when I had watched threads as a 15yr old and our local firestation was part time.


The air raid siren for the area happened to be on our school roof and was tested regularly. Always spooked me


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## StoneRoad (Feb 24, 2021)

Remember going into the gatehouse at a Butlins Holiday camp and hearing this weird "ticking" that wasn't the clock in the late 1970s ...

Many years later, I found out that it was part of the official warning system. [actually, that system was revised. The new one didn't broadcast the annoying ticking all the damm time]


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## belboid (Feb 24, 2021)

19sixtysix said:


> But beware of part time fire stations using air raid sirens as a call out. The was distinctly unfunny when I had watched threads as a 15yr old and our local firestation was part time.


Sheffield city centre has a daily siren that goes off at 1pm. It was funny how lots of people noticed it for the first time after channel 4, or whoever it was, finally did show the film.


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## 2hats (Feb 24, 2021)

belboid said:


> Sheffield city centre has a daily siren that goes off at 1pm. It was funny how lots of people noticed it for the first time after channel 4, or whoever it was, finally did show the film.


BBC2, 23 September 1984; it's been broadcast at least twice on the BBC since then.


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## Orang Utan (Feb 24, 2021)

Blimey, thought it was a bit later - my parents made us watch it - I was only 11!


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## belboid (Feb 24, 2021)

2hats said:


> BBC2, 23 September 1984; it's been broadcast at least twice on the BBC since then.


d'oh, it was The War Game they never showed at all, of course.   It wasn't shown again until 2004, on BBC4, though, that would be the one I was remembering.


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## 2hats (Feb 24, 2021)

belboid said:


> d'oh, it was The War Game they never showed at all, of course.   It wasn't shown again until 2004, on BBC4, though, that would be the one I was remembering.


Threads was repeated in 1985 as part of the BBC's 'After The Bomb' season, along with the first UK TV screening of The War Game. Threads then rebroadcast on BBC4, 29 October 2003 (technically twice, as repeated 3 nights later).


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## smmudge (Feb 24, 2021)

For me When the wind blows was more traumatising!


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## belboid (Feb 25, 2021)

2hats said:


> Threads was repeated in 1985 as part of the BBC's 'After The Bomb' season, along with the first UK TV screening of The War Game. Threads then rebroadcast on BBC4, 29 October 2003 (technically twice, as repeated 3 nights later).


I will never trust a quickly skimmed wiki article again!


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## steveo87 (Feb 25, 2021)

The War Game is available  at Archive.org, of anyone is interested.


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## izz (Feb 25, 2021)

I'll add my voice to those who say that it truly was a very scary time. I'd just graduated in 1984 but I'd gone to see a production of when the wind blows as a student and it was just  heartbreaking. I have a memory of leaflets through the door about what do in the event of a nuclear strike which were risible, I think the intent behind them was simply to give us an illusion of control, if you're busy filling water containers and collecting tins of food you've got something to focus on, for all that it would be pointless.  Probably to slow down the great unwashed from realising the great and the good had bunkers which they'd prepared earlier and which they didn't wish to share. 

The cold war had a real impact on people's lives, there was a palpable feeling of dread out and about to the extent you could strike up a conversation about it with strangers in a checkout queue and find others were of the same mind.


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## SpookyFrank (Feb 25, 2021)

smmudge said:


> For me When the wind blows was more traumatising!



Yup, I was only a nipper when I read that. Was in the kids section of the library tbf.


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## Artaxerxes (Feb 25, 2021)

SpookyFrank said:


> Yup, I was only a nipper when I read that. Was in the kids section of the library tbf.





smmudge said:


> For me When the wind blows was more traumatising!



It did more to make kids life long pacifists than any other book.


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## skyscraper101 (Feb 25, 2021)

This is also good, in a similar theme. It's scary how close we came to a nuclear attack in 1983




In fact this was about as hairy as it got: 1983 Soviet nuclear false alarm incident - Wikipedia


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## farmerbarleymow (Mar 3, 2021)

steveo87 said:


> The War Game is available  at Archive.org, of anyone is interested.


Do you have the link to the relevant page - it throws up loads of stuff apart from that.


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## Argonia (Mar 3, 2021)

Well done Stanislav Petrov


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## steveo87 (Mar 3, 2021)

farmerbarleymow said:


> Do you have the link to the relevant page - it throws up loads of stuff apart from that.



(Took some finding, plus when I watched it wasn't in two parts, so god knows where I found the original...)


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## farmerbarleymow (Mar 4, 2021)

steveo87 said:


> (Took some finding, plus when I watched it wasn't in two parts, so god knows where I found the original...)



Cheers.


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## skyscraper101 (Mar 4, 2021)

steveo87 said:


> (Took some finding, plus when I watched it wasn't in two parts, so god knows where I found the original...)



Depressing stuff.

Cheers! haha


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## steveo87 (Mar 4, 2021)

Yeah it's advisable to have a visual cleanser nearby, if I'm honest....

With Wargame specifically, the worse part is its dramatic scenes are based on the aftermath of Dresden and the Fall of Berlin, as in it actually happened.


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