http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-29804446

Threads scared the crap out of me 🙁

Was an interesting time to grow up in….

I recall watching that aged about 10 very vividly, it scared the bejesus out of me.

Thing is, the threat of nuclear armageddon hasn’t gone away, it’s merely been temporarily muted.

If by interesting you mean terrifying I concur. My abiding memory from this time is insomnia caused by dreams of nuclear armageddon.

Now it’s the immigrant-snowpocaplyptic/global boil up-ebola tinged-benefits Britain-NHS meltdown-gypsy wedding-muslims are all going to get us-paedotastic dystopia that keeps me awake.

Yes I am a suggestible sort…

Although looking back only have one source of life-freezing terror makes it seem like a simpler time….nuclear terror nostalgia? Who’d a thunk it…

I remember going home from primary school one day just before the 1983 general election, terrified at the potential Armageddon if Labour won. A bigger boy had told me at lunchtime that if Labour won the GE they would get rid of all Britain’s nuclear weapons, as a result of which the USSR would fire one, and it would orbit earth and destroy it. I had 3 or 4 virtually sleepless nights before I disclosed my terror to my mother.

Should I watch Threads? Didn’t see it first time around. I’m a fan of Post-Apocalyptic Dystopian drama but everything I’ve read makes me think I’m better off having never seen it.

I see your Threads and raise you Survivors , bubonic plague 😉

Seeing some of the posts here show me my age, I was just graduating from Uni when this was on ! @the_great-ape I remember a teacher telling me about living through the Cuban Missile Crises and how they had to face such a reality

Good article. Thanks Harry.

Like many here and of a similar age around the early to mid 80s, I had a morbid fear of nuclear war. I wasn’t allowed to watch Threads when it was broadcast though I vividly remember sneaking a peek on the TV in my bedroom, just as the weapons detonated and being so utterly terrified as to be physically sick.

I overcame that fear by reading as much about the subject as I could; everything from first hand accounts of Hiroshima and Nagasaki through to works of fiction and docu-fiction.

One book in particular helped enormously: ‘Warday’ James Kunetka and Whitley Striber: Warday on Wikipedia

I watched ‘Threads’ as an adult. I wouldn’t even go so far as to call it a ‘post apocalyptic dystopia’ as dystopia suggests at least some form of societal structure and organisatio. There isn’t a shred of that in Threads.

It ends utterly without hope.

For gods sake don’t let kryton57 see this, he’ll not sleep for weeks… 🙂
I remember watching it, I’d already read quite a lot about prospects during a “nuclear exchange”, for some reason in my school library were quite a lot of books about the cold war and the likely effects of an exchange. Still didn’t make for dreamless sleeping.

Just duck and cover, you’ll be fine.

I once curated an exhibition about design and disaster – including things like Morrison Shelters and the like. One of the most depressing items was small plastic bowl and spoon, quite stylish in a 50s utilitarian way, and very smooth and edgeless like spoons for babies – they were the ones issued to be used by the WRVS (iirc) to feed survivors in the event of a nuclear war. It just conjured the idea of a situation where nobody would be able to eat anything they needed to chew.

Should I watch Threads?

Yes, absolutely. It’s the best anti-nuke propaganda ever produced. Watch it and you’ll instantly become a CND sympathiser. And it’ll scare the crap out of you.

http://www.theguardian.com/film/filmblog/2014/oct/20/threads-the-film-that-frightened-me-most-halloween

As an aside new build Apartments in Singapore have “nuclear” shelters 😯

Yes, absolutely. It’s the best anti-nuke propaganda ever produced.

I think it’s more accurately the best anit-nuclear war propoganda ever produced. I strongly suspect there was something inherently correct about MAD that meant both sides having the ability to destroy the other actually helped keep the peace.

Of course, if you remove the fear of being destroyed, then you’re in all kinds of trouble, which is why the west is so frightened of an Islamic bomb.

And if you want to know how you’ll fair should the worst happen….

http://nuclearsecrecy.com/nukemap/

The public information films featured in Threads were real and titled ‘Protect and Survive’, narrated by Patrick Allen the voice of the Barratt Homes comercials. Still sound eerie watching them today

And the voice of the narrator in the film itself is Paul Vaughn, who was a voice of my childhood from the Horizon programmes,(which I used to love)and who, bizzarely, is also the voice in several computer simulation products the company I now work for sell!

They were indeed scary times…

http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Able_Archer_83

I see your Threads and raise you Survivors , bubonic plague

Not even in the same league – in Survivors it’s just like they’re on an extended glamping trip!

I did quite like it though despite that.

I wasn’t too scared by all that but I remember taking my little brother to see the film Earthquake with the sensurround that shook the cinema. He was so frightened he asked me if we could leave, which still makes me want to give him a big hug today as I felt so sorry for him.

“They bloody would be, I **** hate prawn cocktail”. 😆

I remember it well from the time. I was very active in CND at the time too. It’s a scary film because it was so real….. You could see it happening. It wasn’t far fetched …. 30 years I would love to watch it again……

Raymond Briggs’ When The Wind Blows is also very, very powerful – perhapes even more so because it’s the same guy who wrote The Snowman etc.

The world is dangerous in new and complicated ways nowadays, but in terms of personal danger to us it’s far, far safer than it was in those days. I was at primary school during the ’80s, and remember a teacher telling us not to bother to get under the desks or anything if there was a warning.