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This is the horrifying script the BBC was planning to broadcast to the nation in the event of a nuclear attack on the country, back in the ’70s. If your radio or TV still worked, and if your ears hadn’t been melted off your head, this is what you would’ve heard:
The full PDF of the speech is available on the BBC’s site and makes for terrifying reading, particularly so if you’re old enough to remember the late ’70s and early ’80s, when it felt as if the UK’s media was preparing us for an imminent nuclear war. Here’s a brief snippet:
This is the Wartime Broadcasting Service. This country has been attacked with nuclear weapons. Communications have been severely disrupted, and the number of casualties and the extent of the damage are not yet known. We shall bring you further information as soon as possible. Meanwhile, stay tuned to this wavelength, stay calm and stay in your own homes.
Remember there is nothing to be gained by trying to get away. By leaving your homes you could be exposing yourselves to greater danger.
Do not, in any circumstances, go outside the house. Radioactive fall-out can kill. You cannot see it or feel it, but it is there. If you go outside, you will bring danger to your family and you may die. Stay in your fall-out room until you are told it is safe to come out or you hear the “all clear” on the sirens.
Imagine a very serious looking Fiona Bruce interrupting Strictly and reading that out. [BBC PDF via Twitter]
Image credit: Legendary BBC nuke apocalypse documentary Threads
Unfortunately, Fallout has given me such a bad idea of the nuclear apocalypse. Keep calm and carry rad-away.
“I don’t want to set the woooorld ooon fiiiireeee….”
In further to my earlier post, I have just actually sat down and watched this video. It’s still a great production; a bleak, horrific and very personal view of a nuclear war.
I believe that Hollywood often tends to concentrate on the people in power during these sorts of things, whereas this British film demonstrates the ability to present the everyday person and the problems they face. We can empathize with these characters; would we be any different in the same situation?
I like the wording ‘this country’. Were they amounting for a change in the name at some point or they couldn’t decide whether to say Great Britain or United Kingdom?
I live in Sheffield, and Threads still kinda unnerves me. I mean, the Moor shopping area has had a failed revitalisation plan thanks to the recession and actually looks like a bomb has hit it, but joking aside, it’s still very weird to see mushroom clouds on familiar horizons.
I thought it looked familiar! I was on the Moor just yesterday. Travelled all the way from Chesterfield.
Still not seen this Threads, though. I’ll have to purchase/acquire it.
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-2023790698427111488
or very “afraid”!!
Sheffielders unite!
I thought the Moor “revitalisation” was still ongoing.
I haven’t been up that way for a few weeks but I thought they were moving the market up there?
We’re everywhere! “biggest village” and all that …you probably know a friend of a friend’s cousin of mine!
I remember seeing Threads in school but I didn’t really take it in. As for the moor; its still not looking great.
Don’t. For the love of god, don’t. I still feel like Threads is the most harrowing thing I have ever watched. I needed a stiff drink to watch it.
I haven’t seen threads, but I’m in two minds whether to track a copy down.
Libertine, according to to the wiki page it is available on DVD after a 2005 release but is also available online.
From the article:
video.google.co.uk/videoplay?docid=-2023790698427111488
Every time I take the bus past The Moor, I see what is supposed to be the new Sheffield Market that is pretty much an open piece of ground right now.
I thought this was the official disaster broadcasting programme?: http://youtu.be/_n-EwNcnRXI
“Agus, airson greis neach-coimhid, sinn tilleadh gu ar cláraichte Pádraig Post!”
And for viewers in the North of Scotland, we return to our scheduled Postman Pat….
I wonder if the modern version – to be deployed when Iran attacks – will have a “Tweet This” button.
Shouldn’t you be commenting on the Daily Mail version of this article? It’ll be on there in a couple of days if they’re true to form.
No need to fallout
“Stay in your fall-out room until you are told it is safe to come out or you hear the “all clear” on the sirens.”
Ha hahahah… Oh yeah… The old fall-out room? We all had one of those in the 70′s… It was bolted onto our 2 up 2 down terraced house. We called it a bed sheet thrown over a table. It was totally Radiation proof. Is there anyone contributing to this site who had a fall out room?
No fall-out room as where we lived as we would have been toast whatever happened. Major military bases, big ports and a nuclear power station all within 30 miles – We would have had no chance.
I also remember the siren tests only too well. I know they still use (and test) them for certain emergencies, and actually was quite freaked out when I heard one early on Sunday morning last summer..
Three miles north of me: A huge aluminium smelter. Three miles south of me, a port and large power station. Fallout shelter?? We had an observation deck. 2 x 250kt hits within 6 miles of each other wouldn’t have left much standing in between them.
Here’s a fun tool for you all to play with: Google maps + nuclear weapons
http://meyerweb.com/eric/tools/gmap/hydesim.html
I remember the old Protect and survive leaflets with the advice about making a kind of lean to shelter with a couple of doors. I also remember spending parts of the eighties in genuine daily fear that the end was coming.
…Yeah but, did you really think it would? I was 18 in 1984 and never really let any of it bother me. Saying that though. Think of 1984 – Mass unemployment of 3 million, a recession, AIDS hysteria, the threat of Nuclear War. And people think its tough now…Ha.
Somebody mentioned the TV docudrama Threads from 1984. It’s definitely worth a watch, even if just for the period drama appeal. It’s got 80′s tech, fashion, the working class V The middle class living situation. It’s a great piece of 80′s period on film for all the kids Born in the 90′s. It looks like it was filmed a 100 years ago.
Yes, I do remember being genuinely convinced it would. Consider who was running the UK,US and Soviet Union at the time, not a fucking braincell or moral scruple between them.
I also remember that at about the same time as threads, there was a US drama about nuclear war, which was the biggest pile of bullshit propaganda you had ever seen.
Propaganda was the buzz word of the 80′s. Everything was rubbish. Except the music – some good bands came out of the 80′s though. In the North East it was pretty grim. So, you just put on your walkman copy (I had a Sanyo) and went for a walk.
Do you mean “The Day After”? Nuke on Kansas City (amongst other places)
Thanks Giz, for reminding me of this. I’ve spent the last 2 years trying to forget it after watching it on Google Video.
Scariest I’ve felt in a LONG time.
My family still have a fallout shelter in the back garden. Paranoia they say was rife back then, not to mention there are some pretty BIG craters a few miles away that have been turned into lakes from when the ww2 bombs dropped. It’s leadlined i believe 10 inches thick metal and goes 10 metres into the ground and has enough food and water to last 2 years. Sad thing is i think the vault style door has been jammed shut for a few decades now
Hell, lead lined and 10 metres underground… Did you grow up in Buckingham palace? I don’t think even the PM was awarded such, post nuclear apocalypse accommodation. You need to get it open. Lead is worth a fortune now.
Yeah i believe so. My grandfather and father built it themselves back in the 70′s during the heat of the cold war (no pun intended) and dug out the ground with just shovels (It’s not that large after all). I don’t really think it’d be capable of actually withstanding a close impact being homemade and all but it’s a nice thing to know is there
Did you call it vault 101?
probably should have since it’s one of the few that remained intact
good omen
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