Survivors: The Spectre of Threads (2025)

[bunniefuu]

You b*stard!

This is "BBC

Two, where tonight's

major drama production, THREADS,

is introduced by John Tusa.

- Good evening.

In the 40 years of the nuclear age,

we've grown accustomed to its vocabulary

and even somewhat hardened to its ideas,

- Fallout, radiation sickness,

zones of destruction,

mega tons, even mega deaths.

The phrases have become

part of everyday speech.

But recently, a new one's been added

that has introduced a fresh sense

of urgency into the nuclear

debate, the nuclear winter.

That's to say, the belief of

some scientists on both sides

of the East-West divide

that a large-scale nuclear

exchange would not only wreak

the vast destruction and death

that we all think we know about,

but would throw so much dust

and smoke into the atmosphere

that the planet's climate

would be drastically altered.

The Sub-Zero temperatures

of a nuclear winter would

threaten the survival

of the survivors.

This thesis is the subject of

several high-level inquiries,

even one backed by

President Reagan himself.

The onus, as one authority

put it, is for those

who doubt the nuclear

winter, now, to disprove it.

When we start tonight with the advent

of a nuclear w*r itself,

what would happen if Britain

came under nuclear attack?

How would ordinary people survive

the impact of the blast,

and the conditions

that scientists say would result

from the nuclear exchange?

THREADS is a drama, but characters

and events are fictional,

and it deals with something

that has never happened,

but it draws on a vast amount

of scientific information

amassed over the last 40 years

on the likely effect and

destructive power of nuclear w*r.

Some of the scenes which

follow may well distress you.

THREADS was made in,

and with the cooperation

of the people of Sheffield.

When you

hear the attack warning,

you and your family

must take cover at once.

The most widespread danger is fallout.

Fallout can k*ll, though

you cannot see it,

feel it, or smell it.

There is danger outside,

so don't go outside.

No one can tell where

the safest place will be.

You are better off in your own home.

Stay.

Although the danger from

fallout will get less

and less as time goes by,

you will never be able to

judge for yourself how bad it is.

It certainly will not be

safe for you to go outside

the house until the radio tells you.

More details are given in the booklet,

"Protect and Survive."

Sheffield, city on the move.

Sheffield, Yorkshire's

largest city, is one

of Europe's cleanest industrial centers.

Sheffield gained its worldwide

reputation for quality

and craftsmanship from her

steel and cutlery industries.

Today, backed up by one of the most

technologically-advanced

manufacturing research programs

in the UK.

Sheffield has widened its industrial base

to cover the most sophisticated

needs of the 20th century.

- It was a time of political polarization

and social tension, really.

We see the collapse of the economic model

that has sustained prosperity

in the post-w*r decades.

So, from the mid-1970s, we see the return

of mass unemployment.

We see rising inflation, we

see decline in heavy industry,

and manufacturing, and that

was causing real problems,

particularly in Northern England

and Central Scotland and South Wales.

We have the ramping up

of Cold w*r tensions,

the renewal of the tension between the US,

and the Soviet Union.

We also see the election

of real Cold w*r warriors

in both the United States

and the United Kingdom.

Ronald Reagan, who uses the rhetoric

of an evil empire in

relation to the Soviet Union,

and Margaret Thatcher,

known as the Iron Lady

for her Cold w*r stance.

- We must ensure that the strong defense

of the West is preserved at every step.

We must watch the strategy,

watch the tactics,

and watch the presentation.

- I remember growing

up in the early 1980s,

and it was grim.

Awful unemployment.

There was soup kitchens,

there was poverty.

Sheffield industry was devastated.

- All major centers of population

and industry will have been destroyed.

- Industry, what industry?

We ain't got no industry in Sheffield.

- Yes, and if the mayor hadn't-

- The miner strike was very close to hand.

We had the steel strikes beforehand.

You know, there was lots

of poverty going on.

You know, people from my kind

of background were affected.

- That bred, that sort of feeling

that we'd been left behind

and that Mrs. Thatcher had

sort of deliberately targeted

this part of the country

because of the fact

that we were elected Labor MPs.

- I presume this is to enable us

to sweep Britain clean of socialism.

- Sheffield is very much a

labor city, a trade union city,

famously known as Socialist

Republic of South Yorkshire.

And there was a sense

that local areas, cities,

local councils had to be at

the forefront of resistance

to Thatcherism or to try

and create alternative political spaces.

- The campaign for nuclear disarmament,

which had been in being

for a quarter of a century.

But back in the 1980s, when

the tensions rose again

between the Soviet Union

and the US in particular,

there was a feeling

that there really did need

to be a strong campaign

to warn people that we

were, once again, drifting

into the danger of a

potential nuclear w*r.

- We see protest marches,

and protest events with six-figure

numbers, 250,000 people.

We see a reinvigoration

of feminism in the 1970s.

Many parts of that Feminist

Movement were deeply interested

in peace and sort of

taking on the militaristic

and patriarchal establishment

and were deeply committed

to anti-nuclear policies.

And famously, they protest

at Greenham Common, which is

where the US cruise

missiles were gonna be based

in the UK.

There are four

missiles in the first lorry.

The buttons which fire them in the second.

In time of nuclear

alert, they will set off

to secret launch sites deep

in the English countryside.

- I was 18 when I come here in 1980,

and I was instantaneously politicized.

Sheffield had a real vibe about it.

It felt like a kind of a place

which had a bit of a mission

to look after itself and to

look after the people inside it.

For us, the Political

Movement was centered

around CND and the Anti-Nuclear Movement.

- In the wider region of Yorkshire,

we'd seen the US installations as part

of what was dubbed "Star

Wars, and the danger

that if there had been a nuclear conflict,

our region would've been targeted

because of the nature of

what was actually installed.

- I remember Ronald Reagan

coming down to London,

and he was proposing that

cruise missiles will come

on our soil in Britain.

- They seem to think they have

a simple answer to warfare,

that if we just lay down our weapons

and stand back empty-handed,

that somehow, peace

will come to the world.

They haven't stopped to figure it might be

the peace of the grave.

I remember piling down and being

in Trafalgar Square,

- I remember that people

were very radical about

what was going on, particularly

with the nuclear concerns,

and I was certainly one of

the people that went on lots

of marches, CND marches,

which were fantastic.

I mean, there were huge,

unprecedented marches.

I think I felt even as

a young person then,

that I could make a difference,

and one person multiplies into millions.

Then hopefully, we can, it's a shame

that not more people are doing it today,

given the threat that we have.

- At that pivotal point,

it was absolutely crucial

to get those cruise

missiles away from the UK

and not to be used as a launchpad.

- Radical local authorities

across the country were saying,

"How can we get this debate going?

How can we ensure that people are warned

of the real dangers?

And arising from that came the idea

of so-called, in quotes,

"Nuclear-Free zones.

Well, of course, they

weren't nuclear-free,

and they weren't zones,

but they certainly got

a lot of debate going.

- They had the resonances of the kind

of the '60s folk music,

which even in my time, felt

a little bit old-fashioned.

So they would always,

any sort of like demonstration you have,

we'd have a fellow called Roy Bailey,

who was a folk singer.

You know, almost doing the...

We shall overcome

Type things, which, well,

I've never liked that sort of thing.

I could tell it was like,

"Oh, they've been going on

a long time saying that,

we're like new people to your movement.

There are bottles with

crossbones and skulls )

In rows, very tidy and clean )

A w*r where no triggers are pulled

Very tidy and clean

Though it's very new to me )

w*r without mutiny

w*r without soldiers

and w*r without fight )

- Growing up in the '80s, I was very aware

of political protest around

nuclear w*r and nuclear weapons

because I came from quite a

politically charged family.

My mom and my sister went to Greencon,

and my dad was a political folk singer.

- We had a lot of news

and information about a

possible nuclear holocaust.

- If you go to a concert, there

were CND flags everywhere.

I went down to Glastonbury,

it was CND-sponsored.

Britain didn't feel like

a cohesive kind of unit.

It had that us-and-themness.

People weren't seeing the

potential problem that were there.

So when THREADS comes on the telly,

and actually shows a nuclear

b*mb blasting over Sheffield,

that was very like, well,

this is what could happen.

And again, that must have

opened a lot of people's eyes.

'Cause again, if you're

not in that kinda world,

that little bubble, you

probably weren't quite as aware

of what was going on.

- Obviously, I was a kid in

the '80s, so I don't remember

how adults felt about it.

My life was as much, you know,

hanging out with my friends

and watching telly, and messing about.

I don't think I was thinking

about nuclear w*r

In the 1980s.

I think I was aware of

it as a background hum.

- The threat of nuclear w*r hung

completely over my childhood.

If you met a child now in 2024

that had the same level of

phobia about nuclear w*r

and about world events that I had in 1984,

there would probably

genuinely be some kind

of help offered or intervention.

- I just stopped being

an undergraduate in 1984,

but I remember fellow students,

their nightmares were

about nuclear attacks

and many people really

felt it was a reality

that it was going to happen.

- To be honest, I can't

remember the actual politics

of the time, but I know we were afraid

of a b*mb being dropped.

- There was an inevitability about it

that you thought it could happen,

and you know, we couldn't stop it.

There was nothing we could do to stop it.

- I was aware of it,

but I'm also conscious of the problems

that were caused in the early '60s

when we had the Cuban m*ssile Crisis,

and my mother, who was an Irish Catholic,

you know, we used to be

on us knees every night,

and seeing the rosary.

- I was in school when that happened,

and there were quite a few

of us that had problems

with anxiety attacks about it.

- We're pretty down-to-Earth

people, aren't we,

in Sheffield?

And we'd take things, you

know, it'll be right, you know,

that kind of thing,

So you know, and I suppose

that's how a lot of us

reacted, really.

- It became an everyday occurrence.

You heard about it on the news.

You heard about the nuclear

fallout and what would happen,

and you know, the disaster it would cause.

- It was very frightening, really.

You know, we were aware

of it really at too young an age.

- We all knew about the

four-minute warning.

- There was this idea that,

you know, you had four minutes

when the rockets were fired,

and the b*mb would go off.

- I had no religious

background whatsoever.

And yet, when I discovered, I

think around the end of 1983,

that there was a possibility

of this huge, terrifying,

all-encompassing global conflict.

When I found that out, I started

to pray every night in bed

to a God that I had no

relationship with at all.

And I can remember it word for word.

So every night before I went

to sleep, I said, "Dear God,

please don't let there ever

be a nuclear w*r, Amen.

- And even now, where am

I, I'm sort of late 50s.

I can still sort of remember

all those things quite distinctly

and the sort of feeling of anxiousness.

- Very much like in the film THREADS.

- It was just that thing

in the corner in the TV

in the corner of the

room, the things we heard.

- People think I'm

exaggerating when I say this.

I spent 18 months to two years

of my life worrying every single day.

Would this be the day that

we get wiped off the map?

- By 1984, it's just

absolutely inescapable.

- You had to resort to

alternative media, i.e., music

and magazines and comics,

and that kind of thing,

where you did get discussion

often in a sort of a bleak way.

- 2000 AD is my favorite thing ever.

First week of 1982,

there's a huge Judge Dredd story called

the "Apocalypse w*r,"

where the Sovs, as they were

called, invade Mega City One,

and press the button and wipe

half the city off the map.

- You can listen to the

pop charts, it's there.

You've got "Frankie Goes

to Hollywood" singing,

"Two Tribes Go To w*r.

You've got Nena singing "99 Red Balloons.

You've got Nik Kershaw singing,

"I won't Let The Sun Go Down On Me."

It's just absolutely everywhere.

- "Protect and Survive" was a series

of short information films

about what you do in nuclear aftermath.

It was made between 1974

and 1980 wasn't intended

for public consumption,

it was very much intended

as we'll release these

if and when this happens, and

people will know what to do.

But it was leaked by Panorama in 1980

and people got to see it.

And then, the accompanying

booklets were sent

to households in the UK.

- I distinctly remember

the "Protect and Survive

leaflet coming through the door.

And I just remember reading it

and just thinking how flimsy it was.

- The advice that was being given

from the British Government

was, frankly, risible.

- It's literally take a can of baked beans

and hide under your kitchen table,

and you, too, can

outlive a nuclear winter.

- You're supposed to

paint your windows white

to reflect the blast.

You're supposed to hide

under a staircase or...

And pack it out with mattresses

and that sort of thing.

Another good

place for a refuge is

a cupboard under the stairs.

- One of the most

memorable bits of advice is

to prop some doors, wooden

doors, against the wall,

and kind of make a kind

of nest with cushions

and mattresses or whatever you can find.

Strong boards or doors taken

from their hinges are quite good.

- There were lots of bits in these videos

about how far the nuclear

blast zone would be,

and when radiation

poisoning might kick in,

and what to do when people get sick.

If anyone dies while you are kept

in your fallout room,

move the body to another

room in the house.

Label the body with name and address,

and cover it as tightly

as possible in polythene,

paper, sheets, or blankets.

- Really horrific stuff,

but presented in a really matter-of-fact,

almost children's cartoon kind of way.

If you cannot

reach home in 10 minutes,

take cover in the nearest building.

If there is no building nearby,

try to find some solid cover.

- It was just so ridiculously stupid.

Didn't even for a minute take it serious.

If there is no solid cover,

lie flat in a ditch or a hole,

and cover your head, face,

and hands as fast as you can

with some of your clothes.

- This is just all acceptable

bollocks, you know,

because it just, you

ain't gonna survive that.

- This is a weird idea, like,

can you survive the blast,

but also, do you want

to survive the blast?

Nobody that I knew wanted

to survive the blast,

they'd rather be dead

than live with that.

- It's that blitz spirit, isn't it?

The idea that if we all get together

and sing happy songs around a campfire,

we'll somehow be fine,

and we'll get through it

because we're British,

and like, no, Britain will be

a radioactive smoking ruin.

Oh.

Oh, oh, please.

Oh, Bobby.

- We also got a leaflet produced

by the city council

called, "You and the b*mb."

I remember it being printed in red

and it basically set out the fact

that they were opposing nuclear weapons,

but that we had to prepare

for the eventuality.

- Everyone knew that a nuclear

expl*si*n would wipe out

a city such as Sheffield, and of course,

THREADS was designed

to just show what that

devastation would mean.

- I didn't buy this myself,

I didn't pay 80 pence for it.

This was given to me by a friend

who bought it in Leeds, in I

think, the very early 1980s.

It's called "How to

Survive the Nuclear Age.

It's almost the

"Anti-Protect and Survive."

If "Protect and Survive is all about,

"You can survive a nuclear

w*r by taking your doors off

and hiding in the shed.

"How to Survive the

Nuclear Age, ironically,

basically says, "You can't.

You are absolutely doomed.

The answer is basically to protest

as it says on the final

page, "Protest and Survive."

- Protest and Survive" is

a really strong message

in THREADS.

In a way, the film

could leave you feeling,

"This is really terrible.

What on Earth can I do to try

and help this never happen?

And I suppose the CND rally that we see is

a really important

consciousness-raising device.

It is down to individual

people in the city to try

and get governments to

not build up warheads

and put forward nuclear deterrence

as a reasonable strategy.

- According to the American

spokesman, the warhead-

- Hey, I'm watching that.

- Here's the thing, do you trust people

with the truth about nuclear w*r?

Most governments would say, "No,

even though they know nothing

about it at all, nothing,

nothing about nuclear w*r.

Keep it from them, it's much easier.

Just after the w*r,

Second World w*r, Churchill

instructed the BBC in secret

that they should never

mention nuclear w*r.

No talks, no discussion

programs, no documentaries,

nothing ever.

And that lasted until the 1960s.

12 seconds later,

the shock front arrives.

- As most people know,

the BBC reluctantly agreed

to let a brilliant filmmaker

called Peter Watkins make

a movie called "The w*r Game"

about a nuclear attack on Britain.

The BBC saw it and were very worried

and showed it to the Home

Office, the Government.

The Government were very

worried, but very cleverly,

they didn't ban it.

They just said,

"We will be very relieved

if you don't show this.

Putting the wrap on the

BBC and the BBC caved,

and said, "We're not transmitting it.

Too horrific for the

medium of broadcasting.

- The BBC's relationship

with "The w*r Game,"

to some extent, determined its capacity

and desire as an institution to engage

with the THREADS project.

- The sense of shame

inside the BBC was amazing.

People felt they'd been betrayed.

The BBC had betrayed them by caving,

and it became a no-go area for

the next like 10, 15 years.

You didn't even talk about it,

but it was a kind of stain.

Fast-forward to the 1980s.

Something was, you know, brewing up,

and nobody still knew anything.

I thought I saw an opening.

We should look

firstly at the options open

to a couple living in

the North London suburb

of Finsbury Park.

Their street is between

three and four miles

from St. Paul's, mainly

Edwardian Terrace Houses.

Joy and Eric live at the southern end.

He's a musician.

She works for a bank.

What could they do for protection?

- There was a new BBC One

series pop science called "QED."

I thought I'll dip a toe in the water.

I will make something which is ostensibly

like a consumer test, a witch guide,

which fallout shelter will protect you

the best for the money.

It's a shallow 18-inch trench

with built-up Earth walls held in place,

initially, with wooden doors.

These are later used for the roof.

At the end of the first day's digging,

the trench started to fill with water.

By the following morning,

this had happened.

- Ah, damn.

- That raises the question,

protect against what?

So it's a way of dealing with heat, blast,

and radiation in a very

stylized way, but very powerful.

The booklet has another design

that's more resistant to blast.

It's a kit of parts obtained in peacetime

and assembled in a crisis.

It's designed for indoors, for a basement,

or ground-floor room.

It's claimed that it will withstand

a two-story house collapsing on top of it.

But although the shelter

itself survives at three miles,

it's right in the center of the fire zone.

This is the area where almost everything

that will burn is on fire.

Even after the blast, the

fires burn up available oxygen.

Inside your shelter,

you might not only be

roasted but suffocate.

- The BBC transmitted it,

it was apolitical,

it was totally scientific-based

on scientific research,

and they got away with it.

You know, the Earth didn't open

and everybody fall into it,

and it kind of relieved them.

And I said, "Okay, that's the first step.

What it doesn't do, deal with,

there's the fourth thing,

you know, heat blast, radiation, trauma,

and social effect.

And you can only do that with a drama.

- Mick, at the time, was a producer

with the science and features.

He'd been working for, I think

about two and a half

years on the whole notion

of nuclear winter.

- I spent a better part

of a year traveling the UK

and the US, talking to 40

50 scientists, strategists,

agronomists, doctors.

- My memory

of my first meetings with

Mick Jackson and the crew was

that they didn't have a

working title at that time.

It was described as we want

to do something equivalent

or similar to "The w*r Game.

Mick and others became more

and more familiar with that

second phase of research,

which is what it takes to

keep a society functioning.

That THREADS were being

cut of a resilient society.

And so my memory is that to get

this THREADS theme clear in

his mind became a big thing

later on.

- I took a lot of this stuff

from Owen Greene's book.

What happens in the movie is

closest to his scenario H.

He has various scenarios for

attack patterns on Britain.

The entire resources

of the British Health

Service could not cope

with this one b*mb on

Sheffield, came from him.

I know he got it from the BMA,

but that's a line that

sticks in your head.

- As the THREADS project

emerged, it became very important

that this was about ordinary

impact on ordinary people.

People that would be taken

as being ordinary by every,

all of the audience in the UK.

- I mentioned to somebody in passing,

"How would it be if we took

the cast of Coronation Street

and put them into a

nuclear w*r situation?

And after five minutes, I

thought, "That's a terrible idea.

You don't want people to

see their friends going

through this.

You want "em to see

themselves going through this.

- Jackson felt that some

affinity with, or representation

of everyday working

class life was important

in terms of using that

language of the soap opera,

that language of the kitchen

sink to create that sense

of a bridge so that people could empathize

and see themselves and recognize

everyday people could recognize

themselves in the characters

and situations evoked in THREADS.

And that's where Barry Hines comes in.

- There was no other

choice but Barry Hines.

I admired the films he

made with Ken Loach.

I thought this, "This is

a guy who has a passion

for the ordinary person,

and he can give me a cast of characters,

and I can subject them to

whatever awful, sadistic things

the laws of physics subjects them to

when there is a nuclear attack.

- When I took on this job, I mean,

I considered it very seriously.

I mean, it wasn't

something I'd even thought

of writing about, and Mick

approached me with the idea,

and I had a good hard think about it

because it's such a serious issue.

But because I do write about

contemporary social issues,

I thought I ought to have a go at this

because it's the most important

of them all, and that's why I took it on.

- I think perhaps the idea of having

to research it in the way that

he always did research stuff

for his books, probably

filled him with horror.

- I wanted it to be unlike

anything you ever saw before.

So, there's no music, no star

actors, no heroic speeches,

no people emoting in front of the camera,

just ordinary life.

We asked the Government if we could go

and watch an exercise

where they train local council officials

on what to do if this happens.

So we went to what was then

called the Home Defence College

in Yorkshire Easingwold.

- Good afternoon, gentlemen.

- Afternoon.

- Hope you had a pleasant journey.

Will you please go into the

second door on the right?

- Good afternoon.

- Afternoon.

- Second door on the right, please.

Good afternoon.

- It was eye-opening.

Easingworld is an ex-country house.

Lovely setting, lawns, fields, woods.

You have a decent breakfast.

The accommodation is a little spartan,

but it's quite comfortable.

And you go in and do the exercise,

and then you break for lunch,

and then you go and do the exercise again.

In the evening, you retire

to the bar, and talk about it

and have a drink, and

nothing like it would be.

There's no kind of stench

of the mobile toilets.

There's no worry about leaving your wife

and kids behind while you are down.

None of that stress,

it's totally artificial.

- I was able to observe

what happened at firsthand,

you know, as a research and as a writer,

just to see how it worked.

And so, I was able to

use all that information

in the bunker scenes, but I think we felt

that it was just a little...

They were a little bit optimistic.

- I wanted Barry to go into that

with the knowledge of

people and human nature.

And what I would do is

add this other element,

which was the voice of Paul Vaughan,

who does BBC narration

on science documentaries.

In an urban

society, everything connects.

Each person's needs are fed

by the skills of many others.

Our lives are woven together in a fabric.

- It seemed to bury the

most abominable thing to do.

And he and I fought

about it the whole time.

Britain has

emergency plans for w*r.

If Central Government should ever fail,

power can be transferred

instead to a system

of local officials dispersed

across the country.

- That voice is relentless.

It's saying, "This is what

a nuclear weapon will do.

This is what this temperature will do.

This is what this amount of blast will do.

This is what breaks down.

This is what you don't

have there anymore.

All that stuff.

It was a tempestuous

relationship in a good way.

At one point, I think we were the two

of us arguing in the lobby

of a hotel about a particular scene

and what should happen in it,

and shouting at each other.

And eventually, the manager

of the hotel came to us

and said, very tactfully,

"Gentlemen, I assume you

were rehearsing a scene,

but the other clients are kind

of objecting to the shouting.

Could you keep it down?

The main idea that Barry

and I came up with was, this

wouldn't be just the attack

and the day after to coin a phrase.

It would be what happens

after that and after that,

and after that, because it

goes on, it doesn't stop.

- We got the go-ahead to start researching

and developing the project

through Mick Rhodes,

as Head of Science and Features.

I doubt very much that

he had any conversations

with anybody else above him.

I don't think they had an inkling

that we were making a

program called THREADS.

I remember many production

meetings with me saying,

"We still don't have

enough money to make it.

And one of the decisions

I did was to say to Mick,

"We're not gonna make it out of London.

So I had some very early

discussions with BBC Bristol.

Bristol turned out to be a

little bit of inspiration for us

because there was more flexibility

with how things were done.

- As a member of the BBC Makeup Department

at that point, I was just

told I was gonna be doing it.

I was just allocated to it.

- I heard about this show

called THREADS, so I asked

to be considered for it,

and I went to be

interviewed by Mick Jackson,

and I was terribly enthusiastic,

and I was sort of, "Well, I'm

an ex-boy scout, so I know

how to do bonfires and hunting

and sh**ting and fishing.

And he said, "No, it's none of that.

There is no happy ending in this.

- With the team assembled, obviously,

we made some original kind of overtures

to Sheffield City Council.

- The emergence of the idea

of filming THREADS in Sheffield came

as something as a surprise.

This wasn't something we went out to seek.

- I didn't show anybody

on the council the script,

and would not show 'em.

I said, "Trust me, I'm

gonna get this right,

but I need your help.

I need loads of extras to

appear in the crowd scenes.

I need access to something we can destroy

and turn into ruins, all

kinds of other stuff.

Will you help us?

And they trusted me.

- My memories of it

are, "Yes, very welcome.

Please come to us, we'll

cooperate in any way we can.

We'll make facilities available,

and by all means, film

in the City Center.

- There was a council estate

that was due to be demolished.

I said, "No, don't demolish it.

Let us do that for you.

And you could clear away

the ruins afterwards.

- They were literally in the process

of pulling them all down.

And I think we were, at that point,

some weeks away from filming,

so we made a request for them

to stop pulling down the back-to-backs.

- It's perverse, really,

because promoting your city

by making it the center

of a nuclear holocaust

is not my idea, now,

of a particularly good

way of selling the city.

- And I was the first person

that Mick Jackson saw for the part.

It was the only time I've

ever said to a director,

"I would really like a part in this,

regardless of what that part may be.

Because I knew that the

content would be close

to my heart, I suppose.

- I was doing a play at the

Royal Court, ironically,

the play was set in Sheffield.

I was playing a young Sheffield lad,

obviously, somebody from

THREADS must have seen it.

And I got this call from my agent saying

they were interested in me for a role

in this drama documentary

called THREADS.

And I was like, "Really?

A drama documentary?

I'm visiting things like, you know,

a reenactment on "Crime Watch"

or something, you know,

something terrible.

I don't wanna do that,

thank you very much.

Of course, the clincher,

when he sent me the script

before I met them, was

written by Barry Hines.

- I first worked with Barry

when Ken Loach came to Sheffield

to do two films called

"The Price of Coal.

- Come on, you said you're gonna be late.

- Here, cut these.

- Beautiful, hey, love?

- yeah.

Put 'em on the sink, and

I'll see to 'em after.

- He didn't want proper actors,

and he didn't want just

people from the street.

He wanted club acts, and I was

a club act, I was a singer.

- Barry Hines, to me, was godlike.

The film "Kes" was just

the most wonderful film.

It was like a rites of passage film

for any Yorkshire kid.

- That prefect's looking

all over the school for you.

- Well, I went out there, sir,

for a breath of fresh air.

- And where are you going now?

- Employment Office, sir-

- Field interview?

Well, get off then, lad.

And God help your future employer.

What makes Billy

Casper the way he is?

What's wrong with the boy?

Perhaps, perhaps it's a secret,

a secret shared only with Kes.

- I never auditioned.

I was just asked if I would

do the part of Mrs. Kemp.

So, I think Barry just wanted me.

- Once I got over the fact

that halfway through the

character was no longer speaking,

that was like,

but apart from that I'm

like, "This is great.

This is really good.

I'd like to meet them very much for this.

- As always with Barry,

he wrote about ordinary

people in extraordinary times.

And Ruth, the character, was

somebody that everybody went

to school with.

She was everybody's

friend, sister, daughter,

rather than hold you at arm's length

as somebody who's watching

it, it draws you in

because all of those characters

are people that we know.

And that's what I think

made THREADS so visceral.

- As I started to prep THREADS,

the BBC Library got hold of a book,

which had photographs

in it that were taken

after Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

So the minute you start

looking at something like that,

you realize how horrific it was.

This is Hiroshima.

The date, August the 6th, 1945.

A single Super fortress

flying at 30,000 feet,

approaches the town shortly after 8:00 AM.

- What I learned was

that, in fact, your chance

of survival was extremely high,

and you would live,

and you would live for quite a long time,

and die rather a painful, nasty death.

- I tried to fill it with as many images

that they wouldn't forget as I could.

The melting milk bottles,

the woman in the ruins

with a dead baby, all

those kinds of things.

Every time some politician

talks about fire and fury,

and giving a bloody nose strike,

or escalating to

deescalate, all that jargon

of strategists and so on.

I want them and the people who elect them

to have these images that

instantly pop into your head,

and say, "Whoa, think about it.

Back off, back off."

- I remember basically

putting out a call for anybody

who was interested in.

We were inundated

with people wanting to come

and be part of the film.

- I remember being with

my friends at school,

and us becoming aware

that there was going

to be a film made in the city.

- I'd seen an advert in the papers,

but it said local equity extras.

And I thought, "Oh, no chance.

And then my friend said,

"Oh, there's an advert "Job Center.

They're wanting ordinary extras.

They're gonna be signing people up

to be extras at the Sheffield City Hall.

If you go down on Saturday morning.

- I remember it was

underneath the City Hall.

We went around the back, and

everyone went underneath,

and there were big sort of queues,

and then they sort of

sectioned people out,

and said, "Do you wanna be in this,

and do you wanna be in that?

- We had them on actually,

a very few number of days.

There was crowds at the

hospital and the prison scenes.

Then there was a crowd

up on The Moor and...

- The very qualities I

think Barry Hines brought

to his writing are the qualities I found

in the people in Sheffield,

not surprisingly,

I mean, he grew up in

Hoyland, which is very nearby.

He knew these people, but

everybody was so nice,

and I think the responsibility,

I think everybody felt,

even the extras, especially the extras,

was to get this right.

The day has been marked

by a number of demonstrations up

and down the country, reflecting

support for and against

the Government's decision

to reinforce Europe

- Marching down The Moor,

which was also shown on the...

When they blowing it up The Moor being

like the pedestrian street of Sheffield.

- My memory is that we were

to chant "Jobs not bombs.

Peace not w*r.

- Everybody's shouting,

top of their voices,

and just marching down the street,

and then you're meeting the actors,

just ordinary folk like us.

- We saw crowds of people,

and they had banners,

and I thought, "Oh, this is the place,

obviously, this is

where we're meeting up.

- We were all on the

steps facing the City Hall

and chanting.

- They were supposed to be

shouting about "Ban the b*mb,"

But what did they do?

Maggie, Maggie, Maggie,

out, out, out.

Everybody got behind it

because we all felt it

really deeply at the time.

The guy with the megaphone was saying,

"You can't say that.

- I've been in protests

since then in my life,

and they always take me back

in a way into that scene.

- Well, our son wanted to be involved.

He wanted to be an actor, and he nagged

and nagged and nagged and nagged,

and said, "Look, you know,

can you take us down?

- My memory of going to be in the film was

that it was all my dad's idea.

I had no intentions of being

on screen at all.

- When I talk to my family,

they say it was me begging

to go down and be in the film.

- And they said to me,

"Right, put this badge on.

You're a trade union leader,

but you're not allowed to

speak, so you're not in equity.

So just nod your head, and look good,

and stand next to this lady.

- And at worst, total annihilation,

you cannot win a nuclear w*r.

- The extras in the crowd

scenes, the anti-w*r rally,

where the woman is saying,

"You cannot win a nuclear w*r,

they got so carried away.

They forgot that the

cops who come in to try

and arrest someone are not real cops.

They're actors with Bobby's hats on.

So they're really lying into them.

We had to say, "Stop, stop, stop,

don't hurt them for real.

- That's what'll destroy this, man.

- But he's still trying to avert disaster.

- I remember, two crowds of

people running at each other

and fighting and kicking each other.

- It wasn't intimidating for me

'cause I was up on the steps,

but if you were in the crowd, yeah,

there was a lot of pushing and shoving.

You've got to remember,

they were all six-foot tall

I was down here, so

I was looking up at everybody.

- I could see him, but yeah, he was left

of his own abandoned down there.

- Please do-

- I set up one

of the scenes outside City Hall.

- He said, "Cook, cook, can

anyone hear that noise?

What noise, and I can hear.

Oil refineries

will have been destroyed.

All our water would've been polluted.

The soil would've been irradiating.

Farm stock would be

dead, diseased, or dying.

- Fortuitously, the Salvation

Army Band marched past.

So they became a sort of integral part

of that scene actually, which was just one

of those joyous moments.

We couldn't have afforded

to have paid for a band.

- After the film, them doing

the speeches on the steps,

he said, "Right, stop, cut, we...

And then he moved some of the crowds,

and the cameras went down

to lower down on the steps,

where there was a guy...

- I think that was a really

nice moment in the film

because it brings home the reality

of people are gonna have

to survive after the b*mb.

This is gonna happen.

- I was 13 years old, I was just

hanging around on The Moor,

as I did as a teenager, just

doing a bit of wandering

around shops and saw this film crew.

- Me and two of my friends decided

after school to get on the

bus and just go into town.

- The brief from the chat

was just get in there

and do a bit of pushing and shoving.

You get in there, get

yourself as close to it,

and we'll take it from there.

- And we're just walking up

The Moor, and somebody said,

"Would you like to be in

a television program?

The most widespread

danger is fallout.

- We're all teenagers, we like, "Oh, yes.

Not realizing what it was for.

We stood in front of a shop window,

and we're watching the television screens.

We did know about THREADS beforehand

because everybody in the school

had been talking about it.

- It makes you realize that

if something like that were

to happen, we're all going,

trying to get us money our bank,

it's gonna be worthless anyway.

It's absolutely no point.

What you wanna be doing

is these, as others did,

emptying shelves in local supermarket

for your necessities.

You know, getting your bread

and your candles or

whatever you're gonna need.

- Hey, you haven't paid for them things!

In response to

today's news of the outbreak

of hostilities between

vessels of the United States

and Soviet Navies, a special session

of Parliament has this evening passed

an Emergency Powers Act.

- Our daughter Lisa, who

was about 18 months old

at the time, she was in a pushchair,

and there was a few takes,

and after one of the early

ones, I whipped her out

of the pushchair, and

the pushchair went sort

of spinning on its own

wheels, and then fell over.

So by the time everybody

had scarped the pushchair

I was left lying there.

And I thought, "Oh, that's got

a certain sort of poignancy

to it, hasn't it now?

- My parents were quite political,

so they took me to a lot

of protests, a lot of rallies.

So I think I was quite used

to that kind of atmosphere.

- Some people were getting

hold of the closed shutters.

- We went rattling these grids

and set an alarm off, which I

suppose was quite atmospheric,

but maybe not what the

filmmakers wanted.

That sort of gave you the sense of panic.

So then the kids did

start running in a panic.

- I used to have this

kind of, it was almost

like a snazzy blazer with

green and red stripes on it.

I was wearing that, so it

does stand out a little bit.

- I can still physically remember

the lying down really cold

on the ground for ages and ages.

People would be coming around,

"Could you just dive more?

Could you twitch more?

Could you kind of jerk more?

- A scene where a guy is driving the car,

the b*mb goes off, he's

blinded, and drives into a wall.

In the script, he was meant

to drive into a lamppost

and the car missed the

lamppost, hit the back wall,

went through the garden,

and actually landed in the

garden of the next house.

Later that day, someone remarked,

"Good job, you didn't hit the lamppost.

There was 10,000 volts going through it.

- Bloody Hell.

- We'd got a sheet, at some

point, which said, "Oh, we go

to this place, go to this place

at this time and this time.

But I thought, "Well, if I'm

gonna go in, I'm gonna go in.

I want all the experiences.

- They did random shots of everybody,

and obviously, the special

effects were put on afterwards,

and then the lady peeing herself.

- Out of everything,

that was the only thing that stood out,

seeing that woman pee herself.

Anne Sellors weeing

down her shoe.

- It was obviously one of the kind

of pre-thought ideas Mick

had about how he was going

to depict the moment the b*mb goes off.

- The director shouted

through a megaphone,

"Does anyone mind if

we'd wet their trousers,

and we'll give them a

free pair of trousers.

- When they were doing it,

they couldn't get it to work properly.

She had some sort of

bag and had to squeeze,

or there was someone

behind me that squeezed,

and they did it twice.

And the director was getting a bit miffed

'cause it wasn't working properly.

The language got a bit fruity,

and we only need one shot,

just do it right.

- Then, she was like

taken away to a minivan

to be given her free pair of trousers.

My memory is that she came

back, and she was really made up

because of Marks & Spencer's

trousers she got for free.

- My name's Luke Sellors,

and my mom was Anne Sellors.

I remember getting there and

kind of being quite excited

because there was just loads

of people milling around.

But then when the kind

of the sh**ting started,

I remember a look of

terror on my mom's face,

and kind of started to get

really spooked out by it.

I remember the sirens

as well quite vividly,

but then it was just kind of scattering,

and everybody just running,

and me just looking around,

almost going, "What is going on?"

It was weird to discover

that your mom's been put down on someone

that had wet herself.

I only became aware of it

after my mom had passed

because we were looking up

for some obituaries online,

and all of a sudden, just

stumbled across my mom's name next

to the woman that had peed herself,

where clearly, it's not her.

The shot of the woman

before the scene does look fairly similar

to my mom in terms of

similar height, similar size,

similar curly hair, and

maybe they just put two

and two together, and

thought it was Anne Sellors

when in fact, it wasn't.

She wasn't someone that

took life too seriously,

and she certainly didn't

take herself too seriously.

So she'd have probably

had a giggle about it

rather than being offended.

My mom would've seen the funny side to it.

- I received a telephone call,

"Do you wanna help with this film?

"What's it about?

"Atomic attack, "Alright,

yeah, fair enough.

- We all turned up, down

at the Owlerton area,

and crewed a fire engine for

putting the set out, basically.

They used special gels for the fire,

like a foam.

- I can remember the milk float,

they had some colored water coming out.

I'm making it like it had been blown up.

- There were body parts

stuffed about in the rubble,

which was quite gruesome,

but you know, that's what you expect.

We were all laughing 'cause we

said, "We're the only fireman

that can put an Armageddon out.

- I remember something specific

about the special effects

because they used a pit prop

against a wall in the kitchen,

one of the houses, and there

was an actress in there

under a door, and he blew the wall out.

And to film from the

interior, the expl*si*n,

they cut a hole in the

passageway in the house.

And so, there was an almighty bang,

and the wall exploded outwards.

Cameraman shot backwards

down the passageway,

and then everybody rushed to

rescue the camera.

- I do remember the

scene where the husband

and myself had to go out after the b*mb,

and we're scrambling in all this bricks,

and there was fire all over.

And I said to director,

", you know,

this looks a bit dangerous to me.

And then he just went,

"Hey," and these two

firemen popped a puppet wall

or football with hosepipes ready.

- And I did come across a photograph

actually, of me wearing a mask,

because obviously, there was so much grit

and muck in the air.

- We were letting off a huge amount

of explosions and black dust.

And I remember in the middle

of filming one particular sequence,

one of the production team came up to me

and said, "I think we've got a problem.

A couple of guys here from

the Environment Agency,

they said, 'We want you to stop filming.'

I said, "You can't.

Of course, we're in the

middle of this production,

and David Blunkett said it's fine.

So I dunno what your problem is.

We did actually get

fined a few weeks later.

Somebody told me

you were paid in sandwiches.

Well, we were open

to get paid in food.

- The lady came to us and said,

"Unfortunately, we've not catered for you.

There's no food left.

Would you like to get

some fish and chips?

There were four of us.

It's 1984, she says, we said, "Yeah.

She said, "Here's a 20-pound

note, is that enough?

I said, "Yeah, it is.

20 pound would've bought a

lot of fish and chips in 1984.

- It was quite an eye-opener.

It was very, very realistic.

You were concerned that this could have,

this act could actually happen.

You know, the nuclear holocaust,

but you just put it to

your back of your mind.

- All those people called

for the following scenes.

Detention Center, the Food

Depot, Hospital, and refugees.

"Please come dressed in your

oldest and tattiest clothes,

and be prepared to be dirtied!

Also, please make sure that

you do not wear yellow, red,

or white clothes.

Finally, for those involved

in the above scenes,

please do not wear makeup,

do not have your hair

smartly done, in brackets,

men, several days' stubble

would help us to create

the right picture.

In fact, come as badly-looking

as you dare, or worse!

- It said, "We want somebody

to climb on the fence,

climb over to try and

loot the food depot.

Nobody volunteered.

I'll do it.

And then, I jumped up, climbed

over the fence quickly.

Well, I was nimble in them days.

I was real fit.

Come round.

"Have you got your

equity card?

I said, "I'm not in inequity.

"Oh, can't use it.

I said, "What?" I said, there's

all these people in equity

and they won't do it.

And I've done it, and

I'm doing it for free.

It was disappointing because

I died gracefully.

- The filming started very

early, and I think it may be

before the buses, so I remember

we walked across the city

to get to Infirmary Road.

So it was almost like walking

into the past as well,

'cause the infirmary just

was kind of the shell

of what it obviously must have been.

- There were basically three of us

on the program all the time,

and I think I was

allowed three more people

on the extra stays.

That was the

call sheet from Hell.

- They must have been told

to turn up in clothing,

which looked a little bit shabby,

and that's all I had anyway,

so that was kind of handy.

- The makeup was absolutely

amazing, it really was.

- The grotesque makeup and

the feeling of desperation,

imagining if you were

walking up to the hospital.

- I didn't leave set, and I

had in my hands brown powder

and a tin of hair like a brown.

And basically, I tried to dress to camera.

- The makeup lady, actually,

she wouldn't leave me alone.

She was constantly trimmin'

bran flakes on me.

The makeup was all edible.

I do remember that they used

to put it right over my mouth,

and I had a wig as well.

The burnt wig, and all this

side of my face, was supposed

to be burned.

When I were hungry,

I just used to whip a few

off, and eat them.

They wouldn't allow me in the bus

where they were serving the dinner

because I was gonna scare everybody.

- The first-aiders came up and

did a lot of the bandaging.

I sent a message back from set to say,

"We want more wounds, we want more blood,

and guts, basically.

All the blood and guts have been bandaged

by these well-meaning people.

So blood then had

to get slapped onto bandages and stuff.

- We were pushed into

the operating theaters

where my daughter was in there.

They did all sorts of things to her,

like put skin on the face

where it's hanging off.

Her clothes were ripped, and

there was blood all over her.

And I walked into the hospital

ground as we were going in,

and she's coming towards me,

obviously thinking I could recognize her,

and I didn't recognize her at all.

It was only when she smiled

that I recognized her.

They poured vegetable

soup to make her look

as if they'd been sick from the radiation.

She had to roll her hair in it,

and her head in it, so

that it was all over.

When she got home, she

smelled horrible.

We were told that there

would be open sores

and things like that, so

we put blood on and wrapped

to dirty bandages, and

their faces looked burnt.

Eventually, we just walked

around and had to come out

because we felt so ill.

- As we were walking past,

they were already pouring

blood outta canisters

onto the floor and around.

And so, it already felt a bit grim.

- They did say when we first

got there that all the actors,

"I want you to go down

to the costume change,

the cabins down the bottom,

and all the extras to the left,

follow that person over there.

And I said to my girlfriend,

"Well, should we go down

to the actor's area?

She says, "Oh, we can't.

I said, "Come on, let's go down.

So I walked up, and this

woman was greeted people

and said, "Name, please.

Looked at a clipboard.

I gave him a name, "David Wilson-Wolfe."

She looked and said, "Hmm,

doesn't seem to be on here.

And she looked at me, and said,

Let me put it on for you.

She said, "Come in,

let's get you made up.

And I had this big scar here,

and she put this ragged

old coat on me, brown coat.

And then, later that day, she said,

"Right, we're filming the...

Going into the Infirmary scene.

You, you're standing over here.

I think my girlfriend

was pushed back a bit,

which is a good idea of mine.

And I was literally, as

you see the camera shot,

I was to the side of her here.

I think that was my main scene, you know,

I was so excited just to see myself

on camera, later on.

- He said to call out for

loved ones or something.

We thought for a laugh, we'd call out

for the lad we shared the

house with, called Bods.

- You!

- Bods!

- Did you hear that?

- You can hear people saying "Bods."

- Could you hear that?

I mean, it's the way we said, "Bods.

"You reckon?"

"Oh, I hope so.

- Help, please.

Help me!

- You can hear it.

- I think it is.

I think it is.

- After the filming that day,

my mate, he got a bandage

around his head and looking terrible.

He went on to a local

newspaper shop to get his paper

and , "Oh my God, what's wrong?

What's happened to you?

"Oh, I mean, I'm in this production

of THREADS at Sheffield," he says,

"Is it filming?"

- Everyone had to get

into the tennis courts,

and we had the traffic warden

with his face bandaged up.

- We were supposed to be

shouting and screaming

and to get letters

outta this tennis court.

And my husband was in that,

in the film, you can hear

him shout, "You b*stards.

b*stards!

He didn't want to appear in it.

I think we talked him into it, really.

When he got in this tennis court,

and we were doing all the shouting,

I think he quite enjoyed that.

- Here I have a bit of plastic

or rubber barbed wire.

This was used at the detention

center on the tennis courts.

The barbed wire never

hurt me one bit.

How did you get...

Oh yeah, how did you get that?

I nicked it.

- I took a picture behind the cage,

which was, to me, very

poignant to see this guy.

He stood out more than the Army guys.

- I remember the "Radio

Times" cover, that's kind

of become the famous

picture, hasn't it now,

of the traffic warden with

the bandage on his face,

and it's almost like a horror film kind

of image in a way, for me.

- That image is one of the

most enduring film images

from that film, and

nobody knows who he was.

- I think the reason it

is such a lasting thing is

because that was dropping

onto people's doormats

and it made them confront the topic.

And that's obviously quite a bold choice

by the BBC back in the day

to put that on the front cover.

- The amount of times that

we're at horror conventions

and there's people dressed

as the traffic warden.

- It's funny how that "Radio

Times" image is, just lingers.

I would love to know who

plays the traffic warden.

- Star, the star of the show.

- Was he a supporting

artist, I'm assuming?

- It's a very frightening image.

It's a bit CLOCKWORK ORANGE-y, I think.

- I sat next to him when he was bandaged.

- I can see his face now,

and from the hospital scene

when he got bandages around his head.

You saw him without

the bandages on, didn't you?

I saw him without the bandages

on, yeah, yeah.

- I read rumors, it was Kenneth Branagh,

and when I looked at the

picture of the traffic warden

and the bottom half of the face,

he does look like Kenneth Branagh.

So I can see why people might think that.

- I think if I was 14, 15,

15 at the time of this,

that gentleman would

probably be passed by now.

Let's hope he is still alive.

Let's hope he sees this film

and says, "I'm here! You should have a number.

Does anyone know who played

him at the bottom of it?

Please contact us.

- Is it important to demystify that

or is it just keep him

as the nightmare figure?

You know that you never find out who he is

because I think that's

actually quite interesting.

Never finding out who he is.

I have a suspicion

we're not going to find out

who he is, but we're going to try.

- Yeah.

- A growing exodus from

cities in search of food.

- It was snowing light

snow, it was freezing.

- When we were out at Curbar

Edge, we all had to sort

of get into line of people.

- There was two or three

coaches that took us,

it was probably 15, 20

minutes, half-an-hour drive.

- When the director came,

and the actors, I remember

him saying, "Now remember,

you've walked, come all

the way from Sheffield,

and you are cold.

We were absolutely freezing

cold, so we didn't really need

to act that.

- There's another lady

in that called Maureen,

who, she was in our dramatic society.

She was a good actress,

and I saw her up front to this crowd,

the director sort of

said, "What we want you

to do is go out and

you're looking for food,

and you're desperate for this,

generally, things like that.

So, he said, "Action.

And the next thing I could

see this Maureen in front

of me at the front, and

someone was eating some cabbage

or some vegetable or something like that.

And she went up to him,

and shook him outta the way,

and grabbed the cabbage off,

and said, "Gimme that food.

I'm starving, you know,

I've got little stuff.

And next thing, "Cut.

And this cut, and they're all go,

next thing he's leading her away,

and she ended up right at the back.

- And then, he did say,

"Well, I want some of you

or one of you over there

to fall to the ground.

And I went, doof, I

just dropped down to the floor.

Okay, right, not yet, get back up.

- I said, "Right, you're

gonna walk across The Moor,

a government helicopter will fly over,

so we want you to gesticulate wildly

and shout at the helicopter.

There's no helicopter.

But when I shout, that's when

the helicopter's coming over.

'Cause they couldn't afford

a helicopter to fly over.

They alert us, so okay, the

helicopter's over there.

So en masse, everybody starts

going, "f*ck off.

Cut, right, okay, "No swearing."

- That was the most exciting bit.

Yeah, telling the

helicopter to f*ck off,

But we didn't, we were only 12.

How I got involved with THREADS was

my mom had a CB Citizens Band Radio,

you know, like 19 and whatever,

and you talk to people with a

little clicky, hand held mics.

So she was talking to someone on there,

who said he was going to be an extra

in the film called THREADS, and Mom

and him decided that it'd be

really cool if I went as well.

I was like, "Yeah, that

sounds interesting.

From Mom talking to him

on the radio the day

before the CB Radio, to the next day,

me going off with a complete

stranger at 11 years old.

That's normal.

Lots of walking past cameras,

walking past people vomiting,

and then we went to a

farmer's field to do some bits

where they wanted people

just picking bales up

and moving things around.

I was a really small child trying

to pull these bales of hay

around the field, and it

was just embarrassing.

And he thought there'd still be wheat

or something in the field.

So what they did is got a

wooden block drilled into it

and put loads of just bits of wheat in it

to make it look like

there was something there.

And then the director came over

and asked me if I'd like

to do a starring piece.

- He came home actually, full

of it, he was buzzing, really.

And he said, It's been a great day,

but I have to tell you one thing, Mom,

and you won't like it.

I die in this film."

The first winter.

The stresses of hypothermia, epidemic,

and radiation fall

heavily on the very young

and the old, their protective

layers of flesh are thinner.

- I'm on IMDb as Dead Boy Under Gate

because my brother

thought it was hilarious

that I was in there.

And when people ask me

about it, I would just say,

"Oh, yeah, I was the dead

boy under the gate.

So I'm on IMDb now.

I've not changed it, and I won't,

'cause it's quite nice really.

- There was one scene in the movie

where Bob, Jimmy's friend,

meets up accidentally

with Ruth in a feeding center.

The idea was that massive crowds

of people being fed, you

know, soup and whatever,

like a hunk of bread, and

they meet up by accident.

And this scene, we couldn't

fit it into the schedule

and it kept slipping to the

next day and the next day.

Finally, we got to the

last day of sh**ting.

We still hadn't shot this scene.

It's a key scene.

And I said, "Oh my God,

what are we gonna do?

We've got nowhere we can sh**t it.

We've used all the locations,

we've sent all the extras

home, we've sent most

of the cast home, we've only got the two

of them and eight extras.

What do we do?"

So we had a brainwave of putting a table

just underneath the camera,

putting a soup bowl in it.

So you just saw pairs of hands.

So the foreground is people's hands coming

with like a raffle ticket

that's been issued,

handing that over, and soup is poured in.

Next one, and they go

round behind the camera

and then the next one

comes in again and again.

This is the final warning.

Ruth.

It is Ruth, isn't it?

I'm Bob, Jimmy's friend.

We met once or twice, remember?

- There weren't thousands of people there,

but you get the sense

because of our improvisation

that there were,

and it works.

I took a camera with me.

A little pocket camera.

So I could get some scenes

of my own on THREADS.

And I went round taking pictures of extras

and Barry, Curbar Edge,

had some copies made,

and I sent them to Barry.

I got this nice letter.

"Dear Stephen, thank you for your letter

and the photocopies of the photographs.

The filming has ended now,

and Mick Jackson has

already started editing.

It should be finished by late summer.

I don't know when it will go out,

but we are hoping for an

autumn transmission date.

Thank you for your help

in making the film.

The scenes involving

the volunteers should be

really moving and dramatic.

Everybody connected with it,

put all they'd got into it,

and I think all the hard work

will bear fruit in the end.

Best wishes, yours

sincerely, Barry Hines.

- The film certainly had

a psychological effect

on all of production.

We dealt with it with quite sick humor.

I had three human dummies made up

by the special effects team

that were very intricate,

and they were used for scenes in the fire.

I do remember sticking

the bodies into the back

of the Ford Cortina that Jimmy drove,

and driving it through Sheffield,

and stopping at traffic lights.

- There was a little bit

of anxiety about THREADS,

and I kind of vaguely remember

at the back of my mind,

one or two excuses that

were being looked at

by the middle editorial

management about postponing it

or maybe even canceling it.

They were getting nervous.

Aubrey Singer, who was

the managing director

of BBC television went

apoplectic when he found out

that THREADS was being made

because Peter Watkins, THE w*r GAME,

had never been shown on the BBC.

So he was jumping up and down

and saying, "Well, why are we

making w*r GAME, Mark II?

I remember very clearly that

the transmission was going

to be August the 6th,

which as it happened, was the

39th anniversary of Hiroshima.

In those days, the summer months,

which included August, were

a graveyard for programs,

particularly new programs

because there was no one around to see it.

If you made a program that

you wanted the world to see,

it would've been from September onwards.

Quite clearly, to my mind,

the BBC wanted to bury it.

A guy called Brian Wenham,

who was the Director

of Television at the BBC,

sort of came to the rescue

and said, "Hang on,

what are you guys doing?

Why is this program going out in August

and not in September?

Which would've been the very

first week of a new schedule.

The other guy that was

involved was Graham McDonald,

who was the BBC Two controller,

whose channel THREADS

was going to go out on.

I remember Graham coming

to the cutting room

and being shown the final cut.

I've never seen anyone

so white in my life.

- You may remember that earlier this year,

you were kind enough to help us

when we were sh**ting our film drama,

THREADS, in Sheffield.

The program is now complete

and ready for transmission.

As a way of expressing our

gratitude to the hundreds

of volunteers, like

yourself, who took part,

we are proposing to

hold a private screening

of the film in Sheffield itself.

We'd be delighted if you

were able to come along.

Without your help, the film

could not have been made.

"The film will be shown on Sunday,

the 23rd of September

at the top-ranked suite,

and the screening will

begin at 11:30 AM sharp.

The film lasts for

one hour and 55 minutes

and will be followed by a buffet lunch

and the chance to meet some

of the members of the cast.

The film will be televised

nationally that evening.

Please bring the enclosed

invitation with you.

Important, because of its subject matter,

THREADS inevitably contains some scenes

which are distressing and which

might upset young children.

- I first saw the film when I

was invited to the premiere,

which was a big dance hall

in Sheffield Town Center.

- I was living in London,

my dad was up in Yorkshire,

and I said, Dad, would

you like to come with me?

They're showing this film

I've just done, THREADS,

in a kind of ballroom in Sheffield,"

and they were showing, I

thought it was brilliant

because they were showing

it for all the good people

of Sheffield who'd been a

massive, massive part of the film.

- I was very pleased that we

had a way of saying thank you

to all these people, and say,

you know, "Come have drinks

and whatnot, and watch what

your efforts contributed to.

- We were all excited,

and you know, thinking,

"Oh, we're in this film

and we're gonna see it, and

there's all this and that.

- I've never been to

a film preview before.

It's like quite a privilege.

- Filled the room, camera

went all over the place,

all news reporters interviewing everybody.

- CNN were there.

And they had a guy who's

practicing this line

over and over again,

"Here, today in Sheffield,

an extraordinary film is gonna be shown.

- It was a very jolly

occasion at the time.

We sort of walked in, saw some

friends there, there were drinks,

snacks, but that all

changed when we started

to watch the film.

- I don't know how this

filming went, I don't know

what else was in this film

other than the ones I was in.

And although there were little

shocking points within that,

which you know, changed

my life in one respect,

I didn't know what it was like.

So I was expecting all sorts.

- There were total silence

while we were watching it,

and you could hear people crying.

And I had to get up and

actually walked to, back of room

and there were a big column,

and I got behind that

because I was sobbing my heart out.

- Sometimes it was really quiet,

and then other times, there

was sort of outbursts.

There could either be people laughing

'cause something struck them as funny,

or kind of gasps as well.

- There was one clip where they showed

the egg box being blown up,

which was a town hall extension,

but it was a nightmare

to people in Sheffield

because it was an ugly

building, and that exploded.

There was a big cheer in the audience.

- When it ended...

When it ended, there

was just total silence.

It was so frightening.

Nobody spoke for ages

because it had just knocked

us all for six, really.

- You could just feel the

tension in the theater.

Nobody was making any sounds

apart from the sobbing.

- And I think people didn't

know how to react at all.

Didn't know what to say.

- Even gave me heebie-jeebies because I...

I'd hate to go through it,

live it for real.

- It just didn't seem like

anything else I'd done.

It seemed like I was watching reality.

- For the first time,

they saw the whole picture

and they saw their city

reduced to this at the end.

It was awful.

- This is a film that

shows you is you're f*cked

if the b*mb goes off.

Don't listen to any of that stupid advice.

It's obviously from this

film you should get rid

of your nuclear weapons.

And in some ways, that

was just a vindication,

and therefore, I don't think

I felt the actual effect.

- Jesus Christ, they've done it.

They've done it.

- They put out sandwiches just like,

almost like probably, you

cured up ham sandwiches and things,

and I noticed after the

film had been screened,

and speeches had been done,

and people got up like

to have the sandwiches,

I remember thinking, "Oh, it's

quite a lot left over there,

and I thought, I'll have them for later.

So I just grabbed a load,

shoved them into me pockets,

and as I was walking out,

they started falling out my pockets,

and I felt that like, "Oh, no.

- I remember the people

from up north, the second

the film finishes, there's

this microphone under my nose,

and that was the wrong

time to do that.

They should have waited a bit.

I've got five children,

and the thought of them suffering

in that such a manner,

now it's just, what can you say?

I think there's a relief, it was over,

but I was definitely crying.

I don't cry often, but I did that day.

- We start tonight with the

advent of a nuclear w*r itself.

What would happen if Britain

came under a nuclear attack?

How would ordinary people

survive the impact of the blast

and the conditions that

scientists say would result

from a nuclear exchange?

- We were kind of excited

because my friends were

all saying, "Oh, let's see

if we can find ourselves

in the crowd.

And that was the main

motivation for watching it.

- I was 12.

And it was the night

that it was broadcast.

Yeah, yeah, a little

bit too young, I think.

- One or two people said

to me, "Did you watch

that THREADS last night?

And I said, "Yeah, Lee was in it.

"Was he?"

- When Mom saw me dead,

she actually cried.

She said, "Oh, my baby's dead, oh.

- I found it upsetting

because knowing that that could happen,

if somebody at the other

end pushed the button.

- Obviously, the scene

where the b*mb went off

up The Moor, I think that

was the most visual thing

of the film.

And then it got more

depressing as the film went on.

- The childbirth bit,

and particularly the bit where she has

to bite through the umbilical cord.

That is the bit that really gets me.

- Karen Meagher, that

birth scene in the barn was

very difficult for her,

but she didn't flinch.

She did it.

The cameraman, Andrew Dunn, in one scene,

he had to track Ruth

through the ruins, walking

backwards over rubble,

and fire, and smoke.

He did it without thinking about it.

Everybody did it without

thinking about it.

- The scene that did stick in my mind was

the years later, the

children huddled round

an old, crackly television set,

having like a lesson or something.

And this is where society

and humankind has got to

at that point in a hot,

rickety old VCR, rigged

up, watching telly,

and scraping around in the

mud, trying to survive.

Skeletons and

skulls of different creatures.

We borrowed them from the museum.

Did you recognize what some

of those skeletons were?

There was the skeleton of a bird.

A bird's skeleton.

- There's not even any hope

for the future is what the...

There's no positive outcome.

Even though there are survivors,

it's not looking good for them.

There's nothing good to look forward to.

Yes, maybe you've managed to

survive this horrific thing,

but you might have been

better off being k*lled

much earlier, it's kind

of the survivors are

the least lucky.

- It was interesting to me

that people in the film,

the actors had local accents,

but by the end of the film,

language is completely broken down.

So they're just communicating

in monosyllables.

Although those are very much

with a South Yorkshire inflection.

- Oy!

One day.

Is it?

Is it?

- Bah, as also Bryan.

- I think, locally,

there was blimey, did all

that filming take place here,

and you know, we're quite pleased

that many of us took part

in it, 'cause they did.

- I got loads of phone calls,

day after, you know,

people saying I were good,

But it were horrific, you know?

I suppose they had to say

that, really.

- Whatever came on that he'd done,

Barry would walk outta

the room, and he'd go

and stand behind the door

and then maybe look out

a bit later and things.

He never just sat down and watched it.

I think he was pleased with it,

and he was pleased with

what he'd achieved with me.

- I watched it at home on my TV set.

I sat by the phone, waiting

for the phone to ring.

Normally, when you work

in a group of people,

who are your colleagues,

like the BBC, they ring up,

and they either say, "Oh, that was great,

or "You really do,

or they say, It's kind

of a coded thing.

"You made some bold choices

there, which means it sucked.

None of that, I was waiting

for the phone to ring.

I was waiting for the phone to ring.

What I didn't find out

until the next day was

that people had just sat there in the dark

or wherever they were watching it,

and some, most, a lot were scared to go

to bed in case they dreamed.

- Ruth.

Ruth.

Work.

Work.

Work. Up.

Oh.

- Within that moment of

sheer horror of seeing

the b*mb going off in my

city, being wiped out,

and people being frightened

in my city, in my town,

and then seeing someone weeing themselves,

and seeing babies being wiped out,

and so forth, I was, yeah,

I was kind of in shock.

In a tiny, weeny little way,

I'd been part of the making of this film.

I had no idea what I was

in when I was in the scene.

We just went along for a laugh.

And then when I saw it,

there was a part of me

that felt kind of weird that

I'd been part of making it,

kind of almost like guilty.

- I've not seen it since, and

I wouldn't watch it again.

I can see it in my head

every night when I go

to sleep now, so I don't

need to watch it again, no.

- I had dreams myself,

you know, about big cloud,

looking through my kitchen window,

and seeing a big cloud in the distance.

I had dreams like that.

- I remember thinking,

If this happened to me,

I would probably try to k*ll myself,

and I'm 14 or something at the time.

- You can remember everything in it,

and it stuck with you ever since.

Now that, to me, is a mark of trauma.

Something you can't shake,

you can't get rid of.

- The mindset was, "I wanna be a survivor.

I'm not gonna lay down and

just die, I will fight.

And it set a precedence in

my mind that, as I am today,

that when I've got a

10-acre plot in America,

and the reason why I

went for a 10-acre plot,

and my wife would agree to

this, is I wanted a bunker.

- I'm always preparing for,

you know, what might happen,

and I've got a plan of,

you know, what would I do,

you know, if the wind's blowing

this way, where would I go?

Is there an underground car park

or something that's fairly secure?

So yeah, I think there's a possibility.

I may have been kind of trying

to work through my trauma.

Really.

God.

Are you alright?

Just memories? Yeah.

Seeing it is so, actually scary.

You'd been fed all this information,

which then it bottles

up inside you.

When you see the film,

it's going, "Oh my God,

that could actually really happen.

But we were kids, you know?

We never had that violence.

As kids growing up,

you didn't watch that

type of violence on TV.

It was never what we saw there.

And it sinks in, and it bites you,

and it seems reality

because when you're seeing

what's happening on the TV,

the news, that sort of thing,

it became like, I wanna swear,

but I'm not that, it might be,

all right, sh*t, this

could actually happen.

This is what might generally happen.

So, and hence, you know

why I say, you know,

I joined the Air Training Corps.

I became a prep per because

it was there for a long time.

Now I live in the States,

and I'm fully armed

because I can carry a weapon.

You know, I've got weapons

because I'm allowed to,

and I've got food, dried food.

And it's...

I think it's all about, you know,

if you were told off as a

kid, you did something wrong,

and you were smacked so

hard that you remembered it,

and you remembered, you know, you remember

that into your adult life.

That was the same thing.

- When the film aired in the UK,

I got immediately a letter addressed to me

and Barry from Neil

Kinnock, who was leader

of the opposition saying,

"Brave work, well done.

Don't be bothered by the fact

that people will be inured to this more,

the more terrifying movies they see.

The dangers of complacency are greater

than any risks of knowledge."

Great phrase.

It was never intended

as a political piece,

except in the sense that this will give

ordinary people, who elect

our politicians, a sense

of what it is they're talking

about when they, you know,

use wildly provocative language.

- We at "Turner Broadcasting System,

are bringing you the following program

to increase awareness

about the consequences

of nuclear confrontation

and in an effort to promote world peace.

This film, produced in Great

Britain, is called THREADS.

It is powerful and alarming.

However, it is not our intention

to frighten but to inform.

Because the more we know

about what could happen,

the less chance it is that it will happen.

- Ted Turner, who start

really started cable TV,

saw the movie and said, "This

must be shown in the US."

So it was shown in the

US the following January.

- We see lots of responses

by television critics in America today.

And it's really fascinating

that the way they talk about it,

almost all of them talk

about it in relation

to the day after.

Describing the day after as

optimistic, overly optimistic,

perhaps, in contrast to THREADS.

The way they talk also about Sheffield is

really interesting.

Seeing it as a city

that is like Pittsburgh

or Philadelphia, seeing it as a city

that is also like Middle America.

So those ideas

around Sheffield as an everyday place,

are really interesting

in that respect, too.

THREADS is

a story about nuclear w*r.

It relates events through the

experiences of two families,

the working-class Kemps and

the middle-class Becketts.

The Becketts' unmarried

daughter Ruth, is pregnant.

The father is young Jimmy Kemp,

a fact linking the destinies

of the two families.

Through their eyes,

Britain is seen slowly

awakening to the possibility

and consequences of nuclear w*r.

The story spans a period from

one month before to 13 years

after a nuclear attack.

It is set in the near future

in the City of Sheffield, England.

- I'm not convinced that

vast swathes of children

in 1984 stayed up on a Sunday night,

on a school night to watch

a two-hour harrowing drama.

What I think did happen is

that they were shown THREADS at school.

- I saw it in primary

school, which seems bizarre.

- They put on a showing of it in the hall,

and which it was always

great when that happened

'cause they'd wheel in this

massive cathode ray TV,

and you think, "Hooray,

I can put my books away.

No work."

- It was actually in

an RE lesson at school,

at High Storrs School.

So I took...

I was very proud and also very embarrassed

because I wasn't aware it was happening,

and I remember my classmates turning round

and taking the piss.

- The day after, all the

kids were talking about it,

but the main thing we talked

about is the woman who weed.

- There's like almost a

comedic element to that

when you're a kid, and you're a moron.

- That's the thing that the

kids took away from that film.

All that harrowing darkness,

and that's all it seemed to talk about.

- Well, that woman's weeing herself.

But it was like really

frightening at the same time.

- Not very long after I was

traumatized the first time,

then I wandered into an English class

at Swinton Comprehensive School, which is

where I was studying at the time.

And all of a sudden, it was like,

"Right this afternoon we're

gonna watch THREADS."

And I was like, "Oh,

okay, here we go again.

- Right, we've got a film

about a nuclear b*mb going off

in Sheffield, and then a

fear sort of filled the room.

- I remember wanting to leave.

I was in the middle of a kind

of the seating, you know,

the school, standard school seating.

It had a fairly devastating effect on some

of my classmates.

- My wife, who I went to school with,

felt quite faint during it,

and told the teacher, and

they said, "Oh, okay, Karen,

go and stand at the back of the class

so you don't have to see all the horror.

- By the time you get to

the woman carrying the baby,

I think pretty much everybody

in the room had freaked out.

- I was quite sort of

exposed to quite a lot

of horror media quite early

on, by that age I'd seen,

you know, "Cannibal Ferox,

and various horror films.

But seeing it in a British

context was interesting for me.

- I was more like, "What

the f*ck have they done

to Woolworths when that blew up?

I like, we're going there?

- I inundated now

with people saying to me,

"You know, I am scarred for

life because of your film.

- Whichever teacher it was,

I think he probably f*cked

up an entire class of kids.

- I genuinely think

that the lasting legacy

of THREADS and the

residual trauma of it,

school teachers have

got a lot to answer for.

- I think people who saw it as

kids carried that with them.

God knows what trauma it

gave them, I don't know.

It's part of the world we live in,

and you could argue that

those kids are gonna grow

into this world and

have to deal with that,

or whatever's left of it.

BBC

Radio Sheffield

- Hello, good morning.

It is Ellie Colton with

you, "BBC Radio Sheffield,

across South Yorkshire

and North Derbyshire.

Let me take you back to the 1980s.

Do you remember this

classic Sheffield movie?

- This time, they are

playing with, at best,

the destruction of life as we know it.

And at worst, total annihilation.

You cannot win a nuclear w*r.

Now, on the 40th anniversary

of the film being made,

two men are making a

documentary about the film,

and why it's so significant

to South Yorkshire.

- When the film was on

television, the front cover

of the "Radio Times

featured the main image

with this really horrifying

image of a traffic warden

with bandages all over his face,

and a g*n over his shoulder.

And that's somebody that

we've been trying to look for,

and we are really hoping that

we managed to track down,

or at least somebody who knew him,

or if he's still around, if

we can actually find him.

So that's one that's our

main priority at the moment.

- Well, I'm sure you're wondering

why we've got you both in,

and this morning, the answer

is we have found him for you.

That man is Michael Beecroft.

Is here now.

He was originally a traffic

warden in real life as well.

How do you feel?

- What?

- Surprise, Surprise!

- My name is Michael Beecroft,

and I played the traffic

warden in the film THREADS.

I was a club circuit singer.

I did clubs in Sheffield,

Leeds, York, Newcastle,

just a normal everyday life, really.

I didn't do anything spectacular.

Beverly, the agent in Leeds called me

regarding this extra work for THREADS,

which I accepted.

Done on a cold, wet, frosty,

sleety Sunday morning,

starting at six o'clock,

which Hell of a time to start,

as you know, I was told to

bang the wire with the butt

of the g*n, and shout, "Get

back, you b*stards.

And that's all I said, which turned out

to be a speaking walk-on part.

So the fee went up.

The photographer came,

and we walked around the

set in different places,

different locations, and he

took loads of photographs.

And then the one with the

r*fle, I think was the last one,

he decided, "Yeah, we'll put the r*fle on,

because it looks a bit sinister,

and a bit authoritarian.

We're only working in

the close, probably one

or two nights a week.

So, this job became available

as a proper traffic warden.

I was set on March '83,

and I'd been a traffic warden

for about five or six months.

I were gobsmacked when they said,

"Oh, you're gonna be made

up as a traffic warden.

Did you ever say to them,

"I am a traffic warden?"

- I don't think so.

I don't think so, no.

My agent called me and asked

had I seen the "Radio Times,"

and I says, "No, why?"

She says, "I think your

photograph's on it.

And I think Beverly tried

to get some compensation,

but failed miserably,

shall we put it that way?

I still can't get my head around it,

that it had such an effect on people.

It was just a day's work that I got.

And the reaction to people

over the years has really amazed me.

And to find out that people

dress up as me for Halloween

or whatever, ah, it's just amazing.

Really is just amazing.

You retired 22 years ago,

but for around 20 years

after you were in THREADS,

people were being given tickets

by the traffic warden from THREADS.

- Yes, which of it?

I don't think a lot of them knew it.

Well, probably

none of them knew it.

- No, I don't think they did.

I don't think any of them knew it.

I was just a traffic warden.

Traffic Warden 94.

That was my column number.

We were part of the police,

although a civilian branch.

If it did happen, that's

what I would be doing.

I would've been drafted

in to do things like that,

and looking at people,

and trying to control 'em when they're

in such a dire strait.

Society, as a whole, would've collapsed.

It was a frightening

prospect, I'll be honest.

And it's still a frightening prospect.

All major

centers of population

and industry would've been destroyed.

- Industry? What industry?

Our Jimmy's getting married!

Are you?

This is insulting, Jimmy.

Help me, help.

- In 2017, the Paris Review

and British Film Institute voted

a list of the top 10 films.

It was called "10 Films

That Shook the World,"

and I think they were screened

at the Barbican in London.

Top of the list was THREADS.

- This has been such a huge

blockbuster of emperors

that we didn't realize it was gonna be.

To put it in context, this has been

the biggest pre-sale

we've had since BARBIE.

And it probably falls more

on the OPPENHEIMER side

of that weekend.

I think the reaction to the screening

of the THREADS was very surprising.

We knew it would be popular,

but the level of

popularity was astounding.

At the end, there was complete silence,

people glued to their seats,

it just seemed to really

shock people into a stillness.

So that was the most powerful

response I've seen to a film

before or since.

- I'd never, ever have

thought I'd be sitting here,

talking about it 40 years on.

- It has always been

something that I've known,

I was part of that film

for however small that was.

It's been a story that's been

told throughout my childhood.

- We had quite a good laugh all the time.

That's all I remember.

I don't ever remember thinking,

"Oh, look at this, what are we doing?

Oh, God.

It was just extraordinary.

It's an extraordinary, wonderful job,

and I'm very proud of it.

We had a ball with it.

Was gonna say we had a blast,

but I'm not sure we

can say that, can we?

Yeah, we had a blast.

- THREADS accurately portrays

the effects of nuclear w*r.

- There's nothing else like it, really,

for telling it how it is.

- It's a piece of

state-of-nation television,

state-of-the-world television

that really gets the core

of who we are as human beings.

- It feels real, it feels absolutely real.

These are real people caught

up in appalling world events.

- I think its main legacy

is as a sort of haunting,

I think THREADS has haunted me.

I think that's why I go back to it.

- It's part of our culture.

It's part of my culture,

it's part of my history.

- It feels like a rites

of passage, almost.

Like, have you seen, have

you watched THREADS?

The universal message

that resonates with a lot

of people is deepened

because it is Sheffield,

and because you know that landscape.

- When something like that is filmed there

and there's a lot of publicity about it,

it's gonna remain there in

the psyche for a long time.

- You're on The Moor, and

you stood next to Debenhams,

and you know that's

where the b*mb went off,

and that lady wet herself,

this is where it happened.

It's a film, but this

is where it happened.

It felt like a real thing had happened.

- One or two of my friends

have said, "Oh, I'll have

to watch it, and I said, "No, don't.

- The level of meaning that

it carried 40 years ago,

it's a message that still resonates,

and it's a film that's

still terrifying as well.

- If you are to judge a piece

of art by its efficiency

and how it portrays its message,

I don't think there are

many things that do it

as surgically efficient as THREADS does.

- If no one had taken

part in any demonstration

against nuclear weapons,

I think the world may have

been completely f*cked.

- Watching THREADS, as I did recently,

it was almost like watching something

that's happening today.

- It's 40 years, but the

danger is still there.

- It seems like very dated.

It was set in the 1980s,

so there's no cell phones,

there's no internet, there's no CNN,

everything was dated,

the clothes, the cars,

everything was dated.

From the moment, 47 minutes into the movie

that the first nuclear weapon explodes,

it doesn't matter.

Nothing of that.

Doesn't matter whether

you had an iPhone or not.

It's the same thing.

The nuclear weapon will still

do the same thing to you

as it did in 1984.

- People still look at THREADS

and think, "Well, you know,

it still could happen, this.

- It still has that power to shock.

It still has that power to make you think.

It still has that power to make you think

about your situation, the

political situation in the world.

I think it still has that

resonance with people,

so it's always gonna be watched, I think.

- When you see it now, you think,

"I shouldn't ever have

stopped worrying about this.

- I think it's as devastating

as it was 40 years ago.

- I'm still shocked watching

it today, it still holds up.

It's horrifying.

The most disturbing film ever made.

- I still have people

saying to me, "Oh, you know,

I never slept after seeing THREADS,"

or "It was the worst

thing ever saw in my life.

I was so terrified.

And you think, "Okay,

it worked, that's good.

- It's not a POSEIDON ADVENTURE,

or THE TOWERING INFERNO.

It's not a genre of horror

films or action films

or disaster films.

It's a thing which it is.

It's THREADS.

When you attend a funeral )

It is sad to think that sooner

Or later, those you love

will do the same for you

And you may have thought it tragic )

Not to mention other adjectives )

To think of all the

weeping they will do )

But don't you worry

No more ashes, no more sackcloth

And an arm band made of black cloth

Will someday never more adorn a sleeve )

For if the b*mb that drops on you )

Gets your friends and neighbors, too

There'll be nobody

left behind to grieve

And we will all go together when we go

What a comforting fact that is to know )

Universal bereavement

and inspiring achievement )

Yes, we all will go

together when we go )

We will all bake together when we bake

There'll be nobody present at the wake

With complete participation

in that grand incineration )

Nearly three billion

hunks of well-done steak )

We will all fry together when we fry

We'll be french-fried

potatoes by-and-by )

There will be no more misery )

When the world is our rotisserie

Yes we all will fry

together when we fry

We will all char together when we char )

And let there be no moaning of the bar )

Just seeing out a Te Deum

when you see that ICBM

And the party will be come as you are )

We will all burn together when we burn

There'll be no need to

stand and wait your turn

When it's time for the fallout )

And St. Peter calls us all out

We'll just drop our

agendas and adjourn )

And we will all go together when we go

Every hottentot and every Eskimo

When the air becomes uranous

We will all go simultaneous

Yes, we all will go together,

when we all go together )

Yes, we all will go

together when we go )