Uncertain times ……… when nasty bits of history don’t go away

I suppose every generation at some point comes to terms that with uncertain times, threats become real and the unthinkable becomes a prospect to be prepared for.

Poland, 2026

This is a Polish guide which today slipped through the letterbox of our kid who lives in Warsaw.

The title is "Poradnik bezpieczeństwa", subtitled "Przeczytal;przecwicz! zachowaj!" which translates as "Safety Guide Read it! Practice it! Keep it!"

And given that Poland neighbours Ukraine which continues to defend itself from Russian aggression the message is clear.

For my generation it was the Cold War and the very real threat that the superpowers would plunge the world into a nuclear war.

It was a very real threat that never really subsided from the 1950s onwards and had a second visitation in the 1980s.

I can remember the Civil Defence Drills, the short public information messages on the telly showing how RAF bombers could be in the air in under 4 minutes and the sheer horror of the Cuban Missile Crisis.  

All of which resurfaced in the 1980s when with growing tensions between the USA and the Soviet Union a new set of nuclear warheads were developed on a new set of delivery systems.

Britain, 1957

That second Cold War resulted in the little booklet "Protect and Survive" which was delivered to every household across the country and was accompanied by television adverts.

Britain, 1940

So grim were the outcomes of a nuclear exchange of weapons and so helpless it seemed were the prospects of survival when you lived in a city that most of didn’t even open the booklet.

That said the preparations made during the run up to the Second World War did save heaps of lives.

My parents and grandparents will have worked their way round those preperations and regulations, carrying gasmasks, observing the blackout and in the case of dad leaving his job as a coach driver and to take up eseential war work in the north east. 

As far as I know Dad never joined the Home Guard, but others in the family will have done.

In time I will get to know what is inside the Polish document.

But history suggests it will make grim reading.

Pictures; Poradnik bezpieczeństwa, Polish Ministry of Defence, a civil defence poster produced in 1957 by the Central Office of Information (INF 2/122)Civil Defence is Common Sense, National Archives, https://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/education/resources/fifties-britain/civil-defence-common-sense/ Rifle Training for War, a textbook for Local Defence Volunteers by Captain Ernest H. Robinson, 1940

40 years ago ……. Manchester pictures from the archive …….

It is a salutary lesson on the passing of time that four decades have passed since I took these pictures, with the obvious observation that heaps of those that were marching through Manchester will be retired,  and that those in the prams will have had their 40th birthdays.

A Conservative Government was presiding over a tide of rising unemployment, and was pursuing a policy of cuts in public expenditure, set against a hardening of the Cold War with the USA and the Soviet Union developing and deploying a series of new missiles capable of carrying ever more powerful nuclear war heads.

Location; Manchester

Pictures; 40 years ago ……. Manchester pictures from the archive ……. from the collection of Andrew Simpson

Watching the unthinkable ……………….. Manchester 1960

Now, as unhistorical as it is, sometimes you have to speculate on the origins of an unknown picture.

In the case of this one, the information is limited to the date it was taken which was 1960.

Other than that, it is pretty much a mystery.

I don’t know where this group of people were, or what caught their interest.

Suffice to say, it is evening judging by the overcoats, a night in the cooler months of the year.

There are two shots of the group, but no caption, and so we are left wondering.

That said in the same batch, there are a series of pictures of what looks to be a staged rescue of an injured man from a tall building, along with a few of men in uniform.

And that takes us closer to a possible explanation, because in 1960 we were in the middle of the Cold War, which was that stand off between the Soviet Union and the USA, made more deadly because both sides were engaged in arms race, which included the development of bigger and more powerful  nuclear war heads along with the delivery systems.

Added to which both sides were engaged in proxy wars, across the world, any one of which had the potential to drag the two superpowers and their allies into a nuclear confrontation.

Just eleven years earlier there had been the Berlin Blockade, followed by the formation of NATO and later the Warsaw Pact, while in 1961 tensions were further exacerbated by the construction of the Berlin War, and a year later the Cuban Missile Crisis threatened to plunge the world into a nuclear war.

All of which brings me to the conclusion that our group of people are watching a Civil Defence exercise.

The Civil Defence Corps, had been established in 1949 and was a civilian volunteer organisation whose purpose was to mobilise and take local control of an affected area in the aftermath of a major national emergency, which for most people was an attack by the Soviet Union using nuclear weapons. 

There were the obvious links to how Britain had prepared and coped during the Second World War, when many of our cities, and towns came under regular bombardment by the Germans.

And looking at the faces of the men in Civil Defence uniforms, some well have served in the Home Guard, the Auxiliary Fire Service or as Air Raid Precaution Wardens, while others may been in the armed forces.

I was ten in 1960 and much of this passed over me. B

But I do remember the short television films that showed RAF bombers taking off in under four minutes with their nuclear payload , which those of my age and older will instantly recall chimed in with the “Four Minute Warning” which was the accepted duration of the time between detecting an incoming Soviet strike and its arrival.

All of which brings me to those two counter approaches to the unthinkable.  

On one hand there was the Government line reflected in this Civil Defence poster, and on the other the comic response of Beyond the Fringe which pointed out that when Britain  receives the four minutes warning of any impending nuclear attack. Some people have said, "Oh my goodness me — four minutes? — that is not a very long time!" Well, I would remind those doubters that some people in this great country of ours can run a mile in four minutes”.

All of which might not have been lost on the people watching the Civil Defence exercise on the streets of Manchester in 1960.

Location; Manchester, 1960

Picture; Civil Defence, Manchester, 1960, 1960-3179-1, -3179-51960-3179.8, courtesy of Manchester Libraries, Information and Archives, Manchester City Council, http://images.manchester.gov.uk/index.php?session=pass and a civil defence poster produced in 1957 by the Central Office of Information (INF 2/122)Civil Defence is Common Sense, National Archives, https://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/education/resources/fifties-britain/civil-defence-common-sense/