Nuclear bomb attack drills in Schools.

[stuartmmcfc]

Sorry for the slightly alarmist title

My Sister in law who's 55 swears that they used to have nuclear attack drills when she was in School. My Wife and myself are 5 years younger and have no recollection of this during our school years.
Can any of you oldies ( ) confirm this and say when it stopped?

[anonymous-user]

We watched threads at junior school, which was a touch unnerving as we were quite close to Sheffield

Had some nightmares for a night or three after that

[leigh1050]

I'm 57 and cant remember having any such drills.

[red_slr]

In the early 80s there was an air raid siren on the local library and it was tested once a week.
We were always told it was for nuclear war.. but I later found out it was actually because there was a chemical factory just over the road and it was in case of a leak. Still sh*t us right up at the age of 5 or 6!

[cambiker71]

My dad was just talking about these last weekend, he grew up in London, now 70. Said he can still remember the fear of nit knowing if it was real or not!

[jules_s]

I recall one of the teachers/masters at our Boarding school thought it would be funny to let off a three minute warning siren at one point

Didn't go down well that

[Oakey]

Are you imaging them all hiding under their desks?

I suspect she might be referring to when they used to test the warning sirens? There was one right next to my Primary school and I certainly remember hearing them a bit throughout the 80s.

[Smiler.]

This is the only nuclear attack drill I remember from those days



F.A.B.

[jmorgan]

Don't remember any. Remember the siren tests though.

[Oakey]

Is your sister in law Liz Grayson from Croydon? Someone on a BBC article commented they did this in school!

[stuartmmcfc]

She's from Oxford but maybe she heard this and that was what made her mention it.
. Maybe they were a bit more pessimistic around those parts in late 60s?

[glenrobbo]

I can remember public information bulletins on the television ( the Beeb, as it was the sole TV broadcaster back then ), telling you how to unscrew your internal doors to make an indoor shelter against an internal strong wall in the centre of the house. What supplies to stock up with. How to tape up all your windows to stop flying glass shards. How to minimise injuries and exposure to blast, atomic flash and radiation exposure. How long to stay inside, assuming you were still alive.
There were lots of Civil Defence brochures circulated as well.

All if this was particularly relevant round about the time of the Cuban missile crisis, when we really were on the brink of atomic war.

I don't remember school drills, perhaps individual schools/ education authorities took it upon themselves to forewarn their pupils.

None of this would have been a lot of good unless you were a long way from ground zero and upwind of the fallout cloud. Initial survival would probably then lead to a slow lingering death from starvation, cold, lack of clean water supply and radiation poisoning.
Unless you were a secretly nominated priority citizen preselected to be accommodated in one of the many deep underground long-stay nuclear shelters.
The only glitch was you only had 4 minutes to get there.

Best advice I ever had was "In the event of the 4 minute warning, put your head between your legs and kiss your ar5e goodbye!"

[Oakey]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Four-minute_warning

[Iva Barchetta]

I'm similar age and don't remember any such thing.

I do have a terrible memory but I think I'd remember this.

[schmunk]

JPJPJP said:

We watched threads at junior school, which was a touch unnerving as we were quite close to Sheffield

Had some nightmares for a night or three after that

At junior school...?

Blimey.

[Skyrat]

We visited Scotland's Secret Bunker and there was definitely film of school children doing nuclear attack drills (by hiding under their desks). The advice if one was caught out in the open during an attack? Lie down in a ditch with your face down. Laughable really.

[glenrobbo]

Here's a screenshot of one of the pamphlets issued to every home...

[ApOrbital]

In the 70s my uncle set off a air raid siren in a small town 3am not one person bothered to get up.

[DaveGoddard]

Whoever mentioned Threads, is it wrong that that is one of my favourite films ever? Everyone else I've talked to is creeped out or terrified by it, but I find it utterly compelling and fascinating.

[Bosshogg76]

Skyrat said:

We visited Scotland's Secret Bunker and there was definitely film of school children doing nuclear attack drills (by hiding under their desks). The advice if one was caught out in the open during an attack? Lie down in a ditch with your face down. Laughable really.

Common core skills in the RAF when I joined up in 99 was, if you were caught in the open when the instant sunshine dropped, lie with your head facing the blast, wait until the blast and then the shock wave passed....wait!!!!! Don't get up until the blast wave had passed over in the other direction. Then seek shelter, presumably with what ever bits you had left