Threads brings nuclear war fears to a new audience

Karen Meagher played Ruth in Threads

A television drama about a fictional nuclear attack on the city of Sheffield had a profound effect on many who watched it in the 1980s. Now it has aired once again, we spoke to some first and second-time viewers to gauge their reaction.

First broadcast in 1984, Threads has only been repeated a handful of times since - but having gained something of a cult following, it was repeated on BBC Four on Wednesday night to mark its 40th anniversary.

Andrea Cattermole, 56, from Sowerby Bridge, West Yorkshire, said she loved the realism - but it made her "really anxious that it could really happen".

She said: "It made me think if it did happen, I'd rather be one of the first to die and not have to live through it, with all the effects it has on everyone in the long term."

Ms Cattermole said she thought everyone should watch Threads to "understand the dreadful problems it causes to everyone and the planet for many years after the event".

The post-apocalyptic film was created by Kes author Barry Hines, and watching it has become something of a rite of passage for people in his home city of Sheffield.

Val Yates, from Retford, Nottinghamshire, remembered watching Threads for the first time in the 1980s, because it was around the time of her 16th birthday.

A traffic warden was shown with a bandaged face in the aftermath of the attack

Now 56, she said watching it for a second time was "like going back to being 16".

"When we grew up in the 80s we lived with the threat of nuclear war," she said.

"It has suddenly become poignant again, it’s happening again now but for a new generation."

As a teenager, Ms Yates lived in the village of Clarborough, which was only about five miles from West Burton power station, where her father worked.

"I think I probably watched it on my own in my bedroom first time round, my dad worked at the power station, so it was even more scary," she said.

"There was a lot of propaganda around at the time, even in schools we learned about the Cold War and the Cuban missile crisis, it was very realistic.

"We were told the power station was a key target because it’s infrastructure.

"They said if a bomb went off in Sheffield it would take 11 minutes to reach us - there was a graphic which showed how quickly it would sweep the area and it terrified me."

She added: "Everything settles down and today’s kids have no idea what it was like.

"It is only in the last couple of years that the world is lurching towards world war three, that people start thinking about it again," she said.

Asked if watching Threads gave her a sleepless night, she replied the only thing that did that these days was a slipped disc.

The drama is set in Sheffield and first aired in 1984

The story is focused around two families who live in Sheffield when a nuclear bomb is detonated.

In the aftermath of the blast, increasingly desperate people are seen trying to seek medical help and food, and civilised society eventually breaks down. Within a generation, language has died out and survivors live in medieval conditions.

Earlier this year, documentary maker Craig Ian Mann appealed to find one of the extras from a scene where a crowd were herded into tennis courts, and he was later identified as 84-year-old Michael Beecroft.

Mr Beecroft chalked the experience down to being "just a day's work" and was unaware of the image's impact.

Mr Mann - whose documentary "Survivors – The Spectre of Threads" is set to be released next year - said he had spoken to many of the extras throughout the process, and many never wanted to see the film again.

He said: "A lot of them tend to say, we had a lovely time on set, it was great being part of the film, but then they watched it and it terrified them, and they never want to see it again!

"It remains the most accurate depiction of what nuclear winter would look like," he added.

"Nothing has ever captured what the consequences would be, and I think that is what the producer Mick Jackson intended to do.

"He made a stark warning of what that would look like. It is accurate and I think that is why it continues to scare people," he added.

"It is not something at the immediate forefront of the consciousness at all times but it could still happen and I think that is why people find it so scary."

Threads is now available to watch on BBC iPlayer.

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