Threads is a 1984 BBC television play depicting the effects of a nuclear war on the United Kingdom and its aftermath. Written by Barry Hines and directed by Mick Jackson, Threads was filmed in late 1983 and early 1984. The premise of Threads was to hypothesise the effects of a nuclear war on the United Kingdom after an exchange between the Soviet Union and the United States escalates to include the UK.
The story begins nearly three months before the attack, which happens on Thursday, 26 May, though the year is unspecified.
We watch two families’ reactions – the Kemps and the Becketts – first as fighting erupts and escalates, then as the UK places itself on a war footing, and eventually as strategic bombing commences.
We then follow family members as they face and eventually die of the medical, economic, social, and environmental consequences of a nuclear war.
The play concludes thirteen years after the attack, as civilisation rebuilds to a stage like the early Industrial Era, with children barely able to correctly enunciate English. Both the plot and the atmosphere of the play are extremely bleak.
The international tension escalates with several military clashes, Warsaw Pact troops on the border between East and West Germany, the government taking control of British Airways and motorways for military purposes, and large protests against British involvement in the crisis.
Soon Britain is gripped by fear, with panic buying and a mass exodus from the city as reports come in of tactical nuclear weapons being used in Iran.
Protect and Survive films about how to cope with a nuclear attack are now being broadcast daily and repeatedly, normal schedules having evidently been cleared due to the crisis.
The first nuclear weapons of the conflict are used when a squadron of American B-52s bomb a Soviet airbase in Iran with conventional weapons, but then the Soviets use a nuclear-tipped warhead on a surface-to-air missile to destroy the bombers. The Americans respond to this by detonating a nuclear missile over the airbase. From here the scope of the conflict escalates.
On 26 May, at 8:30 A.M. BST – 3:30 A.M. in Washington, DC – Sheffield is going about its normal business.
Suddenly, the four-minute warning sounds and Sheffield erupts into panic. At 8:35, a warhead detonates over the North Sea, creating an electromagnetic pulse that disables vehicles and communications.
At 8:37, a second missile strike hits RAF Finningley, a NATO base near Sheffield, shattering windows and increasing panic.
The city is devastated with most of it set ablaze.
The emergency planners soon realize that they are trapped beneath the rubble of the Town Hall, and they are only able to communicate with the other surviving government agencies in the city by radio.
On-screen text tells us that 210 megatons have fallen on the United Kingdom (with 3,000 megatons total falling around the world), that two-thirds of houses are in fire zones, and that immediate deaths are between 17 and 30 million.
In addition, the threat from fallout means no attempt is made to fight the fires or rescue those trapped by the flames.
Within an hour and 25 minutes after the bombs explode (10:00), radioactive fallout begins to fall on Sheffield from the groundburst at Crewe.
Tensions rise among the chief executive’s team as it becomes increasingly clear that they are not going to be rescued and that the situation outside the bunker is beyond repair. Although they are in radio contact with survivors in other cities, none can send aid to the others given the dire situation throughout the entire country.
A caption states that no efforts are made to bury the dead as the majority of the surviving population is too weak for physical labour. Burning the bodies is considered a waste of what little fuel remains, as is using fuel to power bulldozers in order to dig mass graves. Thus, millions of bodies are left unburied throughout the UK, which leads to the outbreak of diseases such as cholera and typhus.
When authorities realise that food stocks are dwindling, they cut rations to 1,000 calories per day for those who can work and 500 calories per day for those who cannot.
In essence, those who work get more food, and the more people die, the more food there is for the living. Yet after four weeks, when the Town Hall rubble is finally moved to allow rescue workers to enter the bunker, all members of the team are found dead, presumably of asphyxiation.
Meanwhile, due to the millions of tons of soot, smoke, and dust that have been blown into the upper atmosphere by the blasts, a world-wide ‘nuclear winter’ develops.
In Britain, sunlight remains at twilight level even at midday. The nation’s crops, already threatened by radioactive fallout, are also damaged by the lack of sunlight, a problem further exacerbated by the fact that the war happened in spring, when plants are just beginning to grow.
Two months after the war, a radio message is issued saying that Britain must become agricultural in order to rebuild. The narrator informs us, however, that temperatures in the central United States and Soviet Union have fallen to 25 degrees below normal. Also, materials needed for modern farming – chemicals, fertiliser and fuel – are in short supply. Only those who work in the rebuilding will receive food.
One year after the war, sunlight begins to return, but the Earth’s protective ozone layer has been severely depleted by the nuclear exchange, letting in much more ultraviolet light and prompting harvesters to don protective clothing. Subsequent harvests produce even lesser returns due to the lack of proper equipment.
The few remaining survivors are weakened from illness and hunger, and so severely traumatized that virtually no one is ever heard to speak, which may partly explain the poor verbal skills of the children born after the war. Even more die with the onset of winter due to the shortage of shelter, proper clothing, and heating fuel.
Three to eight years after the war, Britain’s population has fallen to medieval levels of some 4 to 11 million. The country has managed to re-industrialise itself to some degree, although only to a relatively primitive level.
The post-war generation are emotionally and mentally stunted. They speak in a distorted, simplified version of English, using simple telegraphic sentences years after pre-war children are capable of forming more complete sentences. This is a problem because when the older pre-war generation dies, the current generation will be responsible for re-establishing Britain as a fully functioning nation, and if they are not able to speak and comprehend proper English, all efforts of reconstruction will be rendered futile and useless.
Information taken from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Threads and abbreviated.
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