Lynn Barber

How Britain prepared for Armageddon from the 1950s onwards

The official policy in the event of nuclear war veered from fatuous evacuation plans to a directive to stockpile food, stay home and hope for the best

The Protect and Survive leaflet issued in Britain in 1980. [Alamy]

Julie McDowall ‘first encountered Armageddon’ in September 1984 when she was only three. Her father was watching a BBC Two drama called Threads about a nuclear attack on Sheffield, but instead of putting her to bed (which he obviously should have done) he let her watch it too. She saw ‘milk bottles melt in the nuclear heat, blackened fingers claw out from the rubble’ and was convinced this was really happening. ‘The experience scarred me for life,’ she declares, ‘and it is the reason you are reading this book.’ In her twenties, she suffered panic attacks and agoraphobia, so she decided to confront her fears by becoming a journalist specialising in the nuclear threat. This book – and it is a very good one – is the result. 

Her narrative begins in the optimistic 1950s when Britain was coming out of post-war austerity and Harold Macmillan was telling people they had ‘never had it so good’. The future was all peace and prosperity and new washing machines. Except that in 1952 Britain exploded its first atomic bomb, in a nuclear test off the coast of western Australia, and in the same year America exploded its first hydrogen bomb. Albert Einstein warned that ‘successful radioactive poisoning of the atmosphere and hence annihilation of any life on Earth has been brought within the realm of technical possibilities’. Churchill commissioned the Strath Report on what would happen to Britain in the event of a nuclear attack, and its conclusions were grim: ‘Life and property would be obliterated by blast and fire on a vast scale… No part of the country would be free from the risk of radioactive contamination.’ 

How could the population be protected? Before the start of the second world war, the authorities predicted that air raids would bring mass panic: ‘London, for several days, will be one vast, raving Bedlam; the hospitals will be stormed, traffic will cease, the homeless will shriek for help and the city will be in pandemonium.’

Already a subscriber? Log in

Keep reading with a free trial

Subscribe and get your first month of online and app access for free. After that it’s just £1 a week.

There’s no commitment, you can cancel any time.

Or

Unlock more articles

REGISTER

Comments

Don't miss out

Join the conversation with other Spectator readers. Subscribe to leave a comment.

Already a subscriber? Log in