Atomic Target Lancashire

Rebecca Shaw Dinner ladies loom large for many people in their memories of school days. Some are remembered fondly, as kindly grandma-like figures who smilingly served bubble and squeak and rice pudding to hungry kiddies. Other dinner ladies are recalled as tyrannical characters who were determined to see every morsel of meat devoured by every terrified child. I remember a lunch monitor – she shall remain anonymous – who scooped mashed potato out of a vat with her bare hands rather than a spoon, and who declared that any crumb dropped or blob of soup spilled would have to be licked off the floor by the guilty party. Yikes. These horrors would pale into insignificance, however, compared to the nightmarish role that dinner ladies would have played if nuclear war had ever broken out. For during the Cold War, plans were afoot that would have seen hair-netted school meals staff forced to serve ‘stew type’ meals to nuclear attack survivors, with the threat of punishment or starvation if the...

From Nuclear Test Veteran to Lancaster's 'Favourite Tramp': The 'Life Less Ordinary' of Bernard Downhill (Just a quick heads up, this article deals with themes including self-harm and suicide. Proceed with caution if these are sensitive issues for you. Thanks, Rebecca.) 'Your own local authority will best be able to help you in war. If you move away — unless you have a place of your own to go to or intend to live with relatives — the authority in your new area will not help you with food or other essentials. So stay at home.' The message in the infamous nuclear war pamphlet Protect and Survive was clear: if you fled your home after the Bomb had dropped, you were on your own. Stray outside the perceived safety of your blast-damaged / roofless / windowless/ burning house, and your local government, safely ensconced in a cosy bunker somewhere, would do nothing for you. In order to survive in the post-nuclear attack world, you would have to rely upon your own te...