The Theat of Nuclear Annihilation in 1980s Britain

[Goldstone Rapper]

Think we beat Pompey wasn't it?
Threads is the most chilling film I have ever watched.

Just re-watched the first three minutes. You're half-right. We were beating Portsmouth 1-0 but it was a half-time score...

 

[Herr Tubthumper]

I remember this era well; I was a pupil at Tideway. About 10 years back I saw an exhibition at the Imperial War Museum about the Cold War threat which showed all the government information stuff. It was certainly interesting to have lived through this period which how seems unrealistic and and at times ludicrous.

 

[Lord Bracknell]

china will drag everyone into world war three. north korea may be a bit player but it will be the chinese.

Interestingly ... the young Miss Bracknell has spent the last week in Beijing, discussing disaster and emergency planning with the Chinese authorities. They seem to be more interested in international co-operation these days than a "China knows best" approach. And earthquakes seem to be a bigger threat to them than nuclear attack. She works for the Red Cross, btw.

 

[Herr Tubthumper]

Interestingly ... the young Miss Bracknell has spent the last week in Beijing, discussing disaster and emergency planning with the Chinese authorities. They seem to be more interested in international co-operation these days than a "China knows best" approach. And earthquakes seem to be a bigger threat to them than nuclear attack. She works for the Red Cross, btw.

What about Boris Johnson?

 

[beorhthelm]

china has too big an issue keeping itself together, it wont be attacking anyone. they seem to understand how thier bread is buttered, trade with the rest of the world, they just dont want to be subservient anymore and treated as a peer by the West.

 

[The Spanish]

Interestingly ... the young Miss Bracknell has spent the last week in Beijing, discussing disaster and emergency planning with the Chinese authorities. They seem to be more interested in international co-operation these days than a "China knows best" approach. And earthquakes seem to be a bigger threat to them than nuclear attack. She works for the Red Cross, btw.

thats that sorted out then lb. please let her know she has put my mind at rest.

 

[The Spanish]

china has too big an issue keeping itself together, it wont be attacking anyone. they seem to understand how thier bread is buttered, trade with the rest of the world, they just dont want to be subservient anymore and treated as a peer by the West.

to paraphrase many 1930's politicians

 

[Goldstone Rapper]

What nuclear war-related songs are there? Here are the ones I could come up with. Any other suggestions welcome. There may be many more, and show that for a time that fear of nuclear war was reflected in popular music:

Frankie Goes to Hollywood - Two Tribes
The Clash - London Calling
Steely Dan - King of the World
Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five - World War Three
The Jam - Going Underground
The Jam - 'A' Bomb in Wardour Street
The Style Council - 'My Ever Changing Moods'
Nena - '99 Red Balloons'
John Forte - 'Flash The Message'
Prince - '1999'
Donald Fagen - 'New Frontier'
Ultravox - 'Dancing With Tears in My Eyes'
Ultravox - 'All Fall Down'
Television Personalities 'How I Learnt To Love The Bomb'
Time Zone (Afrika Bambaataa and John Lydon' - 'World Destruction'
OMD - 'Enola Gay'
Re-Flex - 'The Politics of Dancing'
Morrissey - 'Everyday is like Sunday'
Carter USM - 'Perfect Day to Drop the Bomb'
Varukers - 'Protest and Survive'
Gillan - 'Mutual Assured Destruction'
Bert the Turtle - 'Duck and Cover'
Noel Gallagher 'England'
Red London - 'CND'
Stranglers - 'Nuclear Device'
Vapors - 'Sixty Second Delay'
Kojo - 'Nuku Bombi' (which was the Finish entry to the Eurovision contest in the early 1980s!)
Human League - 'Life On Your Own'

 

[beorhthelm]

to paraphrase many 1930's politicians

and just whoever said in the 1930s that Germany's asperations were international trade? there just arent any parallels, they have different histories, different outlooks, different cultures. for example see how china involves itself with african countries obtaining raw materials, trade and quid pro quo dvelopment with no colonial control.

 

[Goldstone Rapper]

I think it would help the debate on this thread enormously if people were more precise, and stopped talking about whole countries as if they are individual people with a particular personality.

 

[Nibble]

It wasn't, in the 80's at least....refer to the 60's where it was real.

Well the other way to look at it is if people perceive threat then there is a threat. I wasn't even an itch in my Daddy's pants in the 60's but the world was hours away from Nuclear holocaust. A threat indeed and far more immediate than the 80's but the 80's had a certain fear culture about the nuclear threat with doomladen tv spots and public warning campaigns. Whatever the reason the UK government did this for it resulted in half the population being terrified.

Having said that my fears in the early 80's being a young lad varied from rattle snakes (every prog, The Fall Guy, KnightRider etc seemed to have rattle snakes in them), Rabies ( I watched Cujo when I was about 7, terrified me) and not getting Castle Grayskull for Christmas.

 

[Seagull on the wing]

http://youtube.com/watch?v=Q4KZGKnuUuc

What nuclear war-related songs are there? Here are the ones I could come up with. Any other suggestions welcome. There may be many more, and show that for a time that fear of nuclear war was reflected in popular music:

Frankie Goes to Hollywood - Two Tribes
The Clash - London Calling
Steely Dan - King of the World
Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five - World War Three
The Jam - Going Underground
The Jam - 'A' Bomb in Wardour Street
The Style Council - 'My Ever Changing Moods'
Nena - '99 Red Balloons'
John Forte - 'Flash The Message'
Prince - '1999'
Donald Fagen - 'New Frontier'
Ultravox - 'Dancing With Tears in My Eyes'
Ultravox - 'All Fall Down'
Television Personalities 'How I Learnt To Love The Bomb'
Time Zone (Afrika Bambaataa and John Lydon' - 'World Destruction'
OMD - 'Enola Gay'
Re-Flex - 'The Politics of Dancing'
Morrissey - 'Everyday is like Sunday'
Carter USM - 'Perfect Day to Drop the Bomb'
Varukers - 'Protest and Survive'
Gillan - 'Mutual Assured Destruction'
Bert the Turtle - 'Duck and Cover'
Noel Gallagher 'England'
Red London - 'CND'
Stranglers - 'Nuclear Device'
Vapors - 'Sixty Second Delay'
Kojo - 'Nuku Bombi' (which was the Finish entry to the Eurovision contest in the early 1980s!)
Human League - 'Life On Your Own'

Not forgetting "It's good news week" Hedgehoppers Anonymous....think they were RAF guys.

 

[Flex Your Head]

Wah! Heat - Seven Minutes to Midnight.

 

[Phat Baz 68]

That War Game video was truly disturbing to say the least.
Isn't it nice to know that one day some maniac will again launch a nuclear attack !
Only a matter of when, not if. :-(

 

[daveinprague]

http://youtube.com/watch?v=Q4KZGKnuUuc
Not forgetting "It's good news week" Hedgehoppers Anonymous....think they were RAF guys.

They were indeed...although I think it was late 60s early 70s rather than 80s.

"its good news week, someones dropped a bomb somewhere, contaminating atmosphere, and blackening the sky'

 

[somerset]

Does anyone else remember the genuine fear and paranoia in the first half of the 1980's that nuclear war was imminent?

It got so bad that at school (Tideway), the headmaster called a special assembly for all pupils to explain that, despite the government's 'Protect & Survive' booklets which had just been slipped through our letter boxes, nuclear war wasn't going to destroy the UK and that we really should start thinking about those impending exams.

Such was the nihilism and pessimism at the time that I clearly remember friends at school casually talking about what they intended to do when we heard the inevitable 4 minute warning. Where they would go to attempt to survive, or what they would do in those final few minutes of anarchy.
Discussion was rife as to whether it was better to survive and live on somehow, or die in the first salvo of nuclear warheads.

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

It's quite chilling to think about it now, but many of us genuinely thought we wouldn't make it to the year 2000.

Scary times:



Horrific times:



CND was prominent, and this film was finally allowed to be shown:



Quite disturbing that the threat of nuclear war played such a part of my teenage years. Anyone else?

It did unleash a whole slew of fantastic music though, none quite so wonderful as these 103 seconds of fragile protest:

You do realise that the pamphlets you referred to were never distributed to the public, only 2000 were ever printed, and those were retained in government departments. In fact, the films were never officially broadcast because like the pamphlets, they were only for broadcast/distribution if we entered an escalation nuclear geopolitical scenario......some films were leaked to CND and were subsequently broadcast on Panorama.....but they were not ever part of the standard TV, radio or cinema schedules.

 

[somerset]

Why? My recollection of the 80s was of the threat from the IRA rather than the threat of nuclear war. When were the incidents that gave rise to this that were more damning than the events leading up to the Bay of Pigs. I was born in 1962 but appreciate the world was on a much finer knife edge then than in the 80s. I honestly never felt at threat from nuclear armageddon!

Agreed....

 

[Shropshire Seagull]

http://youtube.com/watch?v=Q4KZGKnuUuc
Not forgetting "It's good news week" Hedgehoppers Anonymous....think they were RAF guys.

Hoo, got that on 7 inch vinyl.
Don't remember lyrics being war orientated ?

 

[daveinprague]

Hoo, got that on 7 inch vinyl.
Don't remember lyrics being war orientated ?

Think the first verse is..

'Its good news week, someone dropped a bomb somewhere, contaminating atmosphere, and blackening the sky'

Before I joined the RN, I made the hideous mistake of joining the RAF....did my training at Credenhill, and left after completing training and being posted to RAF Stafford (I joined for the travel, and Stafford just didnt cut it).... Remember it from those times, and that lyric has always stuck in my head.

 

[User removed 4]

Fear and paranoia? What a load of claptrap, most people were more worried about what was happening in Coronation Street.

This, and its not often I agree with doug , however the warsaw pact did get a bit twitchy during able archer in 1983, which they thought was a build up to a first strike by NATO, it was however , just an excercise.