h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

I was doing some research for a guide entry on fallout shelters, and had recourse to one of my favourite blogs, 'Conelrad Adjacent'. It occurred to me that this website might interest some of you as much as it does me. It informative, well-researched, and amazing entertaining, especially when you consider that the subject of each post is some aspect of Cold War nuclear policy, practice, etc.

I've been reading around in it, and came upon one I think UK h2g2ers will particularly want to read:

http://conelrad.blogspot.com/2010/09/englands-cold-war-tea-panic.html

It's called 'England’s Cold War Tea Panic'. Now, aside from the unnecessary flippancy of assuming that running out of tea would be a trivial matter in a crisis (if that's what you drink, it wouldn't: how would YOU like to run out of coffee, bubba?), the bloggers have done us all a service. They ordered and READ volumes and volumes of 1950s bureaucratese about war planning. (Better them than me.) Their synopsis makes interesting reading.

What interested me was that the British planners were frustrated - which I fully understand. What a nightmare. Apparently, they were less rosily optimistic than all the fools...er, cheerful fairies...er, I was right the first time...in the US of A who thought we could survive a minor event like World War III with perfect aplomb.

But, oh, are those reports passive-aggressive. I could just hear them saying, 'Well, if three-quarters of the country die because I couldn't get a requisition, I WILL say 'I told you so'...'

So, what do you think? Do you sympathise with that lone commenter, and think the bloggers are being rude? Or does it make you wonder just exactly how bad things were in the Food Ministry?

And please noodle around in that blog. It's simply amazing what you'll learn.

Where I live they weren't so fussed about the tea, but there was a plan for a fleet of vans that would drive between the different fallout shelters delivering soda bread, sausages and fried eggs. There was also a very Strangelove-y list of people who would deserve a place in a bunker. They were discouraged from choosing fundamentalist Christians, for one.

Well, they should have stayed out voluntarily.

Which reminds me of a very stupid 'sensitivity' exercise I was forced to participate in during the 70s.

You may mock, but, yes, we Brits are really like that. Tea courses through our very veins. Morale is everything when you're fighting a rearguard action from a small island, and a cup of tea when you're gasping for one is something that we understand, but mere words cannot elaborate upon.

Even today we still have a secret defence force of trained community volunteers, who will organise essentials when the next war strikes. I touched upon the subject in some detail in A39617427.

There's a lot to be said for organisation. And .

Although my sister won't believe it - because she is actually allergic to tea. Which is a mystery.

brits in case of nuclear attack/warget under a table and put bedsheets over and around


I was told a true fact from a source who was on the official secrets act at the time (late 1970's) it would only take 3 nuclear bombs to destroy great britain, there were 80 targets for a bomb

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

The population was to be notified by means of air raid sirens, television and radio, and urged to seek cover immediately. In practice, the warning would have been more likely three minutes or less.

the saying was:- in case of a nuclear attack - go boil an egg

I don't think the situation was a lot better in the US, Prof.

I have a close friend who was a firemanhe told me, that somewhere in the Pennines is a secret underground bunker and in case of nuke attack, certain fire brigade vehicles and personnel would go down it and wait! after attack come out and put fires outhe said "what for ? no one will be around to save"

There's probably a lot of worse ways to go than being instantaneously vaporised!

(I was about to say "I could live with that", but ye know what I mean. )

I do. Once the chippie goes, what have you got?

I'll bet they'll still be some black pudding around

This thread made me realize that I've never heard anyone here tell stories about the cold war. I have the impression it wasn't really a big issue for people here, although I live only about an hour's drive away from what was once the iron curtain.

I think people just got on with it, you know?

I lived in Germany during part of the Cold War. It affected them a lot, because people had relatives on the other side. I knew church people who collected things for the 'Osthilfe' - sending warm clothes and household goods to East Germans. And I've crossed a few checkpoints in my time.

I remember asking a German air force colonel, 'What will you do if they invade?'

He looked at me with a perfectly straight face and said, 'We'll resign. We will have failed - it is our constitutional duty to prevent war.'

Nice guy.

Cold war stories, I remember hearing people say, asked what they'd do in the event of s nuclear attack, "Head for the hills! Live off the land!".

Taking a look at the map I found that the hill country was almost exactly equal in area to the urban areas, only a lot steeper, with drastically less infrastructure, that, taken together with a like area of desert.

Not just anyone can survive long unprotected in the so. CA deserts in the best of times.

I suppose the idea of 'heading for the hills' represented a regression to the wild west pioneering spirit, however unrealistic.

Also, wind distributed fallout levels are usually lower near ground zero than down-wind.

Actually, one's best survival strategy is stay where you are, monitor emergency radio, follow civil defense directives... and dig in furiously like that little echidna with the egg in the pouch that survived the KT disaster, way over on the other side of Gondwanaland.