Forty years ago, a nuclear bomb went off in my living room. Or at least that’s how it felt as I watched the BBC film, Threads. I was just 11 years old when I watched the two-hour drama, which is set in Sheffield .
I looked on in growing dread as the kitchen-sink characters slowly realised that growing tensions between the US and Russia were going to go nuclear. I could hardly breathe. Then came the horrifying attacks, starting with the iconic scene of a woman wetting herself as she sees the mushroom cloud go up.
Things only got worse from there as the film shows in grisly, graphic and relentless detail what the aftermath of a nuclear attack would mean for people and animals alike: agonising deaths, societal breakdown, sexual assault and vomiting galore. I, too, threw up near the end and was speechless as the credits rolled. I went to bed that night feeling absolutely terrified and devastated.
This wasn’t science fiction or fanciful horror – this was something that could happen in real life. Kids knew less in the 1980s than they do now because there was no internet or 24-hour media, but Threads had blown apart an innocence in me. It’s still the most terrifying thing I’ve ever seen.
The day after watching it, I woke up in a complete state. I found a screwdriver and started to unscrew the living room door so I could build a nuclear shelter in our cellar. I moved a torch and tinned food into the shelter area.
I kept picking up the phone and dialling the Campaign for Nuc.