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    Stay calm and stay in your own homes

    Have we had a thread on this yet? BBC script from the 1970s, intended to instruct, inform and reassure the public in the event of a nuclear attack, just released by National Archives.

    Story here

    PDF of full script here

    #2
    Stay calm and stay in your own homes

    Plenty of genuine stuff public information from the time from youtube and elsewhere, the highlight being this delightfully morbid contribution

    Comment


      #3
      Stay calm and stay in your own homes

      I love the reassuring image they put on the caption.



      Could they not have chosen a garden full of flowers, or something a little less alarming?

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        #4
        Stay calm and stay in your own homes

        Mumpo wrote:
        I love the reassuring image they put on the caption.



        Could they not have chosen a garden full of flowers, or something a little less alarming?
        "We interrupt this edition of 'Watch With Mother' to bring you unmitigated apocalyptic terror"

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          #5
          Stay calm and stay in your own homes

          Reminds me of the skit in Alas Smith & Jones. GRJ as a newsreader announces that nuclear war has broken out when the news is interrupted for an important breaking news type bulletin. Cue Smith as Dirty Den in EastEnders announcing emphatically: "The dog is fine".

          It was much funnier on screen.

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            #6
            Stay calm and stay in your own homes

            There was much discussion at the BBC over what music should be played at the time of such events. The Beatles were dismissed as too frivolous, and patriotic music was dismissed as too sombre. I think they eventually settled upon "The Sound Of Music".

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              #7
              Stay calm and stay in your own homes

              It's like that ridiculous HMSO publication 'Protect and Survive' with useful advice to take doors of their hinges, prop them against a window and hide underneath them and paint your windows white.

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                #8
                Stay calm and stay in your own homes

                Paint your house or die!

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                  #9
                  Stay calm and stay in your own homes

                  twohundredpercent wrote:
                  There was much discussion at the BBC over what music should be played at the time of such events. The Beatles were dismissed as too frivolous, and patriotic music was dismissed as too sombre. I think they eventually settled upon "The Sound Of Music".
                  "The hiiills are alive with the sound of...



                  ..."

                  Comment


                    #10
                    Stay calm and stay in your own homes

                    I'm not altogether convinced that the graphic shown above is an original - more likely a comedy mock-up made by someone in the BBC's IT department.

                    I have, of course, got a copy of "Protect & Survive" - somebody bought it for me for my birthday about four or five years ago or so. Of course, the whole pamphlet is available online here:

                    http://www.cybertrn.demon.co.uk/atomic/main.htm

                    Should anyone be interested, by the way, in watching the BBC's horrific 1984 drama "Threads", it's available in its entirety here:

                    http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-2023790698427111488

                    This comes as highly recommended, by the way.

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                      #11
                      Stay calm and stay in your own homes

                      Indeed. I saw Threads a few months ago on a recommendation and it is achingly brilliant. But probably the most poignant and eloquent commentary on the tragic uselessness of the Protect & Survive guff is Raymond Briggs "When the Wind Blows", book or film.

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                        #12
                        Stay calm and stay in your own homes

                        Urgh. Threads scared me rigid as a child, and although it's very dated it's still utterly terrifying. Just made myself sit through the bomb dropping scenes.

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                          #13
                          Stay calm and stay in your own homes

                          Ginger Yellow wrote:
                          Yes, I now see the virtues of good housekeeping. When the atomic heatwave comes and fries my body, at least my house will still have some residual value. So clean up those stray newspapers.

                          Comment


                            #14
                            Stay calm and stay in your own homes

                            "When The Wind Blows" is fantastic, though I feel that it kind of suffers slightly from being set in such a rural area (although it does prove the point that radiation gets everywhere).

                            Since we're doing this sort of thing, let's also throw in the BBC's Oscar-winning (and banned for 20 years) "The War Game". You never know how useful this sort of information will be one day.

                            http://video.google.co.uk/videoplay?docid=2864871032688882557&ei=-XPqSLqzI4HCjgL1kJCcBg&hl=en

                            Comment


                              #15
                              Stay calm and stay in your own homes

                              Actually, while I think of it, let's get "QED: A Guide To Armageddon" on here, as well. This is the documentary from which much of the science (and, indeed, some of the footage) used in "Threads" was taken:

                              Part One: http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=1vdzyqQIEAI
                              Part Two: http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=fPnMOZn7v20
                              Part Three: http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=Oa2jNFieGGw

                              Don't have nightmares.

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                                #16
                                Stay calm and stay in your own homes

                                Too late.

                                Comment


                                  #17
                                  Stay calm and stay in your own homes

                                  One day, I will recount the story of the day that my VHS copy of "Threads" arrived from Amazon. I am, I have to say, a massive pussy, but I've never been quite as much of a pussy as I was that day.

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