The early 1980s seemed a scary place.
The two Super Powers had decided that they didn’t like each other all over again, and to add to those tensions there were new nuclear weapons and delivery systems coming on line which were faster and not as easy to detect.
It was as if the Cold War had returned after a brief lull.
Of course, the threat of a nuclear confrontation had never gone away, we just tucked it away in a place where it could be forgotten.
But its return, prompted the British Government to issue a booklet on how to survive an attack, the membership of the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament rose dramatically, and people took to the streets to protest.
Cynics and those who embraced the idea of nuclear weapons scoffed at the marches and demonstrations, while those who took part felt that they had to do and say something.
Which is why in the October of 1981 I was down at All Saints on a piece of empty land waiting for the march to set off.
And as many of us did I took a camera and recorded the event. The pictures of that march and plenty of others have appeared on the blog over the years*, but I have always ignored these two.
Looking at them again, almost forty years, later they may appear a bit hammy, but back then they made the point, and in a very uncertain world with new conflicts breaking out across the planet, I rather think they strike a chord, added to which they are a bit of our history.
Location; Manchester
Pictures; demonstration Manchester, October 1980, from the collection of Andrew Simpson
*Political Protest, https://chorltonhistory.blogspot.com/search/label/Political%20Protest
It was as if the Cold War had returned after a brief lull.
Of course, the threat of a nuclear confrontation had never gone away, we just tucked it away in a place where it could be forgotten.
But its return, prompted the British Government to issue a booklet on how to survive an attack, the membership of the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament rose dramatically, and people took to the streets to protest.
Cynics and those who embraced the idea of nuclear weapons scoffed at the marches and demonstrations, while those who took part felt that they had to do and say something.
And as many of us did I took a camera and recorded the event. The pictures of that march and plenty of others have appeared on the blog over the years*, but I have always ignored these two.
Looking at them again, almost forty years, later they may appear a bit hammy, but back then they made the point, and in a very uncertain world with new conflicts breaking out across the planet, I rather think they strike a chord, added to which they are a bit of our history.
Location; Manchester
Pictures; demonstration Manchester, October 1980, from the collection of Andrew Simpson
*Political Protest, https://chorltonhistory.blogspot.com/search/label/Political%20Protest
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