When 11-year-old Mark Stay was enduring a double maths lesson, some time in 1984, a long siren sounded from outside the school buildings.

“Everyone froze, even the teacher,” recalls Mark, now 51. “It was very similar to the four-minute warning siren. Then she remembered that some buildings nearby were being demolished and this was a detonation warning. Still, nothing like the cold chill of imminent annihilation to clear the mind.”

It’s not surprising everyone was a little jumpy. The memory of Threads was still lingering in their minds. Broadcast at 9.30pm on the BBC on Sunday September 23rd, 1984, just a couple of weeks into the new school year, Threads has imprinted itself on the psyche of a generation, like the shadows of obliterated people burned into the pavements of Hiroshima.

Ask any Brit aged over 50 about Threads, and the chances are they’ll go a little pale, shudder, and start telling you about melting milk bottles and women weeing down their legs in the street.

The birth of the docudrama

It was what today we’d call a docudrama, a combination of the fictional stories of individuals caught up in a nuclear attack on Sheffield and the narration of science broadcaster Paul Vaughan, which gave the facts about atomic war he imparted a horrifying, familiar veracity.

This is what it would be like… this is what would happen to us

There was a ‘Play for Today’ vibe about the story of Jimmy and Ruth, a young couple preparing to get married after finding out Ruth is pregnant. In the background, TV reports and newspaper headlines outlined the growing international tensions with the Soviet Union, but it all takes a back seat to the domestic tribulations… until the nukes start flying, and Sheffield (among most other cities) is bombed.

The memory of the mushroom cloud rising over the city still chills. This is what it would be like. This is not some American science fiction drama, positing the destruction of New York or Los Angeles or other far-off places we only ever saw on TV or at the cinema. This is what would happen to us.

Those behind Threads, nuclear war film

Jimmy was played by West Yorkshire born Reece Dinsdale, who went on to star in A Private Function and the sit-com Home To Roost, while Ruth was Karen Meagher, who the following year took the role of Miss Broom in the ultimate palate cleanser, the kids’ TV show Jonny Briggs.

Threads was produced and directed by Mick Jackson, who, once he got nuclear annihilation out of his system, turned to romantic movies such as LA Story and The Bodyguard in the early 1990s. The screenplay was written by Barry Hines, the South Yorkshire-born author of A Kestrel for a Knave, later filmed by Ken Loach as Kes. Who among us can say we didn’t sit in an English class while a big old TV and a video player the size of a small family car was wheeled in for us to watch that?

Hines brought his trademark northern grit to the script, but there was to be no happy ending. Not even a slightly sad, though redemptive, ending in Threads.

There was just going to be endless bleakness and horror. The mushroom cloud rising over Sheffield, the milk bottle melting in the intense heat from the blast, the woman in the street losing control of her bladder as realisation dawned that this was it, this was the end… that was only the beginning.

Ruth Beckett (Karen Meagher) in Threads (1984)

Gary’s experience

Gary Wilkinson, of Lincoln, was 17 when he watched Threads, and a couple of years later he would head off to Sheffield for university. He’d been aware of Threads in the run up to broadcast largely thanks to the one-off drama being given a Radio Times cover, with what has now become an iconic image.

In the wake of the nuclear attack, government protocols kick in to try to control the remnants of the cities and keep the peace

Anyone with any official links is drafted in, including an unnamed traffic warden, pictured with half his face bandaged and looking genuinely shell-shocked, and carrying a gun. The traffic warden, played by Michael Beercroft, only appeared for a moment, as an example of how martial law would have to be declared in the wake of an attack. But it’s an enduring image. The writer and broadcaster Charlie Brooker even reproduced the costume for a Halloween party a few years back.

Gary, 57, recalls, “It all added to the general feeling of doom and gloom that nuclear war was imminent. It definitely stayed with me though because I went to Sheffield University a couple of years later. I remember recognising some of the filming locations as I walked around the city for the first time – the council building, and the shopping street with the mushroom cloud. Ironically the pub they shot in was a popular student pub, but it had had a makeover so I never realised until later.”

The culture of nuclear war

Threads didn’t come out of nowhere, of course. If you grew up in the 1980s, the threat of nuclear war was a very real one. The year 1984 had arrived carrying all the baggage of George Orwell’s dystopian novel. The rise of the surveillance society and admonishments that if you’d done nothing wrong, you had nothing to fear from the CCTV cameras suddenly sprouting on streets.

The miners went on strike and felt the steel rod of an authoritarian establishment. We had an Iron Lady in Downing Street and a Hollywood Cowboy in the White House, and the special relationship between the Thatcher’s Britain and Reagan’s America seemed destined to take us on a mutually assured destruction collision course with the Soviet Union.

The year after Threads was released, America produced its own take with The Day After. WarGames, starring Brat Packer Matthew Broderick, had been released in cinemas the previous year and was a big hit on VHS in 1984, giving a Hollywood thriller gloss to impending nuclear destruction. Then Raymond Briggs’ When The Wind Blows was adapted as an animated film about the heartbreaking end of the world from the perspective of two pensioners.

The charts were the soundtrack to the apocalypse. Frankie Goes to Hollywood’s pounding Two Tribes had a video featuring wrestlers wearing the heads of Ronald Reagan and Soviet Communist Party secretary Konstantin Chernenko. Nena’s 99 Red Balloons wrapped Armageddon up in a catchy Europop beat. The video to Ultravox’s Dancing With Tears In My Eyes was about a meltdown at a nuclear power station.

An unhappy ending

And all of these were just in 1984. It’s no wonder that by the time Threads was broadcast, we were all certain of only one thing: the world was going to burn. And if somehow we survived, Threads showed us how terrible that would be.

Moving on from the initial attack, it showed a reduced population of a few million trying to claw their way out of the dark ages. Ending with Ruth dying and her young daughter trying to survive in the ruins, getting pregnant, and giving birth to a stillborn, horribly mutated child.

There was not going to be a Hollywood ending if those nukes started flying.

Planning our way out

I was 14 when I watched Threads, and was already fearful of what felt like the inevitable nuclear war. I watched with my parents, feeling a growing sensation of mounting dread. My mum, watching the breakdown of society in the aftermath, said quietly, “If that happens I’m going to get a gun and shoot us all.”

“You’re not going to shoot me!” said my dad. He planned to go up to Scotland and basically go fishing if the mushroom cloud appeared. Nobody asked where mum was going to procure a gun.

My mum, watching the breakdown of society in the aftermath, said quietly, “If that happens I’m going to get a gun and shoot us all.”

The next day, everyone was talking about it at school. My main memory of that is people commenting gleefully about the coloured vomit issued by those slowly dying of radiation sickness.

“Kids at school were just making jokes about it,” agrees Mike Whittaker, a 52-year-old postman from Bolton. “But that was how 12-year-olds responded to everything, as far as I remember.”

Mike watched it alone on his black and white portable TV in his bedroom. “I was way too young, in retrospect. But they showed it in some schools, didn’t they? We got the Radio Times delivered so I must have seen that iconic cover. I think I had a bit of an obsession with nuclear apocalypse prior to Threads, to be honest. Scared and fascinated. Two Tribes and 99 Red Balloons didn’t help in that regard.

‘They’ve done it, they’ve bloody done it’

“The build-up was scarily real to me. The panic in the shopping centre was very upsetting. As was the ‘They’ve done it, they’ve bloody done it’ moment. The end section is obviously beyond bleak. It added to an already real sense of dread. I had apocalypse nightmares for years. Still do now occasionally.”

History repeats

The BBC has only shown Threads twice since that initial broadcast, but it’s being screened again. I’m not wholly sure I can bring myself to watch it again, even 40 years later. The unrelenting bleakness and the sheer lack of hope makes it a difficult watch.

“It brought home that a nuclear attack wouldn’t just be an awful experience that would last a week, or a month, but for decades.”

“It was grim,” agrees Steve Tanner, 56, of Birmingham. “It brought home that a nuclear attack wouldn’t just be an awful experience that would last a week, or a month, but for decades.”

Perhaps if Threads was just a piece of television history about a time long gone, we might be less traumatised by it. But aside from a few years in the 1990s, the threat of nuclear annihilation never really went away, and given the current global situation, sometimes feels as likely as it ever did in 1984.

Still, at least if it does happen, we can all live-Tweet the apocalypse and get one last joke in when the four-minute warning comes. And, as Frankie had it, if you’re unsure what the air attack warning sounds like… this is the sound…

If you can cope with it, Threads is on BBC4 on 9th October, 10:15pm

David Barnett

David Barnett is an author and journalist, originally from Wigan and now living in West Yorkshire. His latest novel is the folk horror WITHERED HILL, from Canelo, and forthcoming, a magical Christmas rom-com, THE LITTLE CHRISTMAS LIBRARY (Orion). He is married to Claire, a journalist, and they have two children, Charlie and Alice.

The post Threads; the closest you ever want to be to nuclear war appeared first on Silver Magazine.

The photos were what caught my eye, of course. You’re immediately drawn to them, and I messaged Nikki Phillips, the photographer, asking about the sculptor and about her own photographs. We chatted a bit and she helped me track down the sculptor, Jackie Lantelli, in Slimbridge, Gloucestershire. I’d wanted to find out more about these otherworldly characters. I got lucky. Not only did Jackie agree to tell me all about them, Nikki kindly let us use her photos.

“I enjoyed doing the photos,” said Nikki. “I love playing around a little bringing out the best light and atmosphere, tried to capture what it felt like.

“It’s a very intimate scene, when you walk round the back of the church and see them standing there with their backs to you, looking down at their own graves, and you stand next to them in sorrow, reflection and remembrance. I hope the photos go some way towards capturing that. It’s incredibly moving what Jackie has created, and speaks to you on such a level words can’t reach.”

The wire sculptor usually makes sculptures of fairies and wildlife. But after an experience of her own, she has a passion for Remembrance Day and wanted to do something to mark it herself.

“A few years ago I took my friend Brigadier Stanley Baldry, 93 years old, to London because they had a special event to commemorate the end of the war in Burma,” Jackie explains. “Driving to London Stan kept saying things like, “There won’t be many there, after all most of us are dead now,” and “there won’t be many there, they did call us the forgotten army you know”.

When I looked at Stan he had tears streaming down his face, and in such a quiet voice I could hear him saying to himself, “They remembered. They remembered”

“When we got there the streets of London were full; thousands, people calling out thank you, we love you, thank you. When I looked at Stan he had tears streaming down his face, he was absolutely amazed and in such a quiet voice I could hear him saying to himself, “They remembered. They remembered”.

“That’s why I feel we should all do what we possibly can to help keep their memory alive. After all, they made the ultimate sacrifice.

“So one day I was out walking my dogs and I started talking to Den Banister who lives in our village and is head of the local history society, and he told me that he had some ideas for this Remembrance Day. He said that he was going to make some soldiers out of wood, that’s when I had the idea of making them out of wire. So I made a couple and we invited the vicar, Reverend Boon, to have a look. We thought he might take some convincing but he was really great about it and gave us the go ahead.

“My sculptures are usually quite solid but this time I wanted to create ghost-like figures; ethereal… there but not there.”

The sculptures aren’t just generic characters though, they represent real people.

“I wanted to do this for the village; we are a close-knit village, and if anything special is being planned we all muck in and do what we can. Along with the sculptures the historical society had researched all of the lives of the soldiers, and created notice boards so that you could see where they lived, where they went to school, what jobs they did, and what they did in the war.

“With the sculptures and the life stories you get an idea of a real person, not just a name on a gravestone. We wanted to honour our fallen soldiers.”

Jackie says she had no idea what an impact the works would make; something that Nikki agreed with. Nikki’s photos have been shared over 333,000 times at the time of writing, demonstrating not only how beautiful the images and sculptures are, but how much we still all remember, and honour. The comments bring tears to the eyes, and that oft-casually used phrase, ‘Never forget’ is soundly represented here.

“When I started this project I thought it would go no further than the village,” said Jackie. “But once I had made a few I thought this is going to be a bit special it might get in the local Gazette. I had no idea that it was going to create this much interest, I must say I am absolutely amazed at the affect it’s had.

When I had finished I just sat on a chair looking at them and cried

“Creating them has been emotional. I remember making the sculpture of the Wherrett brothers (one has his hand on his brother’s shoulder, as if to comfort him) and when I had finished I just sat on a chair looking at them and cried.

“Seeing people’s reactions when they see them is emotional; the comments that I’ve heard or read has been so passionate. I hope that the message we get from this is we must not forget them. They made the ultimate sacrifice, they died before they had the chance to live. The least we can do is remember them.”

The soldiers won’t stand by the gravesides indefinitely though. “All of the soldiers have homes to go to after Remembrance Day. Some are going home with relatives as they still live in the village.”

After such an extraordinary project I asked Jackie what she had in mind for her next project.

“I have a couple of ideas for next year but will keep them secret for now,” she says. We will be keeping our eyes peeled.

From 2018
Photos by Nikki Phillips: Instagram @njphillips74

Sam Harrington-Lowe

Sam is Silver’s founder and editor-in-chief. She’s largely responsible for organising all the things, but still finds time to do the odd bit of writing. Not enough though. Send help.

The post Gone but not forgotten – the ghostly soldiers by their graves appeared first on Silver Magazine.