How to survive a nuclear attack | Nuclear Rehearsal | Operation Hot seat | TV Eye | 1981

Hot Seat is a grimly serious game they organised in Yorkshire. ‘They are the Home Office Defense College at Easingwold., The players are chief Officers from local authorities around the country.
Each month a 50-strong group of officers play out the nightmare of a nuclear attack on Britain. They compete against everything that such an attack would mean, against disease, starvation and anarchy.
First shown: 12/11/1981
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Quote: VT25770

[@Vortigan07]

Only a child of the 70's/teenager of the 80's can understand. The threat of nuclear annihilation was very real and was a constant backdrop to our lives.

[@solcutta3661]

Especially something happened around 81/2 (Cuban missile crisis?) in the world crisis league and at our school in Lincolnshire one day's a huge load of stringed together blankets arrived and were unloaded from the back of a flat back lorry /truck and taken off somewhere we didn't see...then couple years later in 84 we see threads and witness such blankets delivered at schools in lead up to nuclear attack so we must have been in some kind of real perceived threat in goverments eyes.

[@WarrenCromartie2]

The sad thing is, we're closer to war than ever, but they just don't talk about it now, because they've figured out that there is actually no defence against nuclear war. No point alarming the public. Let them live in ignorance.

[@eliotmansfield]

And in the 80’s when my brother played frankie goes to hollywood - two tribes with the nuclear siren introduction(we were half a mile from a real one) i was absolutely shitting myself and thought “it’s started” - true story.

[@KKTR3]

@@solcutta3661 Oh gosh chap you’re 20 years off the ball

[@KKTR3]

What would the coronavirus generation make of those times

[@knockshinnoch1950]

The harsh reality is that they were simply responsible for rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic...

[@RustyPetterson]

The entire point of these exercises was the continuation of government. The people they are supposed to care about, and feed, and shelter, would very quickly become the enemy, unless they could make themselves useful. One inescapable fact was: the more deaths there were, the fewer mouths there were to feed. I'd thoroughly recommend "War Plan UK" by Duncan Campbell, if you're interested in this type of thing.

[@thewomble1509]

yes, a brilliant book that totally exposed the British Governments lies regarding "civil defence" from 1968 onward.

[@grahamfisher5436]

Also the book Noahs Castle . made into a TV programme too.

[@keithmartin1328]

How effective would all this have been? Just watch "Threads" , shown on BBC in 1984, to see.

[@EricCox4848]

Completely ineffective. Some semblance of government had broken down. Those government officials like Clive Sutton or everyone else involved weren't prepared for such a catastrophe because of very little or poor training and they sure weren't expecting to be buried under several feet of rubble when the top 4 floors of their town hall collapsed on them. The bottom line is that war game scenarios are one thing and the real thing is something else entirely.

[@popemalevolent1]

Watching them talk utter shit around a conference table reminds me of the part in 'Threads' where all the local government goons holed up in the control room simply starve to death or succumb to radiation. Lol

[@davidkennedy1077]

I was a kid during the 70s and 80s and things like this scared the crap out of me!!! We had the film 'Threads' and 'When The Wind Blows' and public information films, as an adult this was a worrying time but as a child it was horrendous.

[@spankysmp]

You're right. The early 80s was mad. Nuclear attack....AIDs...everything was out to kill us.

[@davidkennedy1077]

@@spankysmp yeah, I forgot about all the AIDS coverage too. Our generation must be messed up due to all the constant fear mongering.

[@cricketman1322]

Threads is a fucking scary film. When the wind blows is sad.

[@davidkennedy1077]

@Steve music, British home computer games, films. I loved it all when I got a little older (into secondary school)

[@davidkennedy1077]

@@cricketman1322 exactly, we even watched Threads again at secondary school (I think the teachers wanted to drum it into the future generations heads just how bad these weapons were) When The Wind Blows made me cry, as it reminded me of my grandparents.

[@rapman5363]

Hurricane Katrina devastated an entire city in the States in 2005. The police Dept walked off the job in droves and were only concerned with their own survival as well as their family. The same with the fire department. My point is when a terrible event happens people will only care about themselves and even the folks whose job it is to perform vital tasks will inevitably not be able to function. So one can only imagine a nuclear war and how such a breakdown most definitely occur.

[@scottjoseph9578]

Democrat run city. Under a GOP GovernoR, the NYPD and NYFD performed brilliantly on 9/11/2001.

[@honved1]

@@scottjoseph9578a very different GOP

[@bf1255]

Maybe down south that’s normal but nowhere else

[@ElizabethMcDermott-cy4cv]

😂 Been saying this ages. They take people into their wardship but if it unravelled... They can't even hold it together in austerity or a pandemic. Can you actually imagine?

[@fractalign]

In the event of imminent attack by atomic missles, head to your nearest army, airforce base, or navel port, if there are none are in your area, head to your nearest metropolitan centre, upon arrival exit your mode of transport, remove any glasses and await further immolation.

[@loricagardener4826]

If you are anywhere near the blast, go out and take deep breaths to shorten your suffering.

[@the-letter_s]

I don't want to set the world on fire...

[@EgoShredder]

Summed up perfectly in this classic Metal song, and uses the Ink Spots song you mention in the intro.... kzbin.info/www/bejne/qXiomWycrb2UmdE

[@gpsgroup1242]

Thank you, nice memories, I did a lot of these courses and still have all my paperwork and my Easingwold Tie! It was so nice there, silver service restaurant, bar, it was like being at a Club.....happy times.

[@Trotsky130]

It's still open

[@johnmajor9564]

Thank you for this video! Please more of the nuclear storyline.

[@MrSstiel]

Sobering history. I wish Britain had the civil defence system of Sweden or Switzerland. Most of their populations would survive nuclear attacks thanks to the systems they have.

[@KKTR3]

So we’ll survive and what happens next everybody has a long lingering starvation death you’ve got to get away from this notion of survival the only choices are it doesn’t happen or it’s the end

[@reubendobbs8011]

No point we are targeted with so many high yield weapons there is nothing to survive for. Look up the Soviet target plan for the UK 10 to 16megatonne in the hundreds on us. Just a big hole left !

[@KKTR3]

I’m sure you Not thought this through-so everybody survives but no industry radiation nuclear winter no food no food no water That isn’t contaminated-you sound a little bit like the infantry man from war of the worlds musical album

[@grahamfisher5436]

KZbin ON THE 8TH DAY nothing survives sorry

[@zippymufo9765]

@@KKTR3 Nuclear winter has been debunked as a exaggerated fraud. All of the scientists who supported it were "anti-nuclear activists" and had ulterior motives, although in this case it was lying for a honorable reason----they wanted to turn the public against nuclear weapons.

[@That_Random_Bloke]

I remember a dinner lady at my junior school in the 1980s casually telling a group of us kids that “Oh yes, the next war will be a nuclear war”. That was a quiet bloody lunch that day...

[@Frohicky1]

Enjoy your sponge pudding.

[@Al-ol3tu]

Did you finish your spam and chips after.

[@That_Random_Bloke]

@@Al-ol3tu 🎶“LOVELY SPAAAAAAAAM! WONDERFUL SPAAAAAAAAM!” 🎶

[@Al-ol3tu]

@@That_Random_Bloke the food of champions

[@ScrappyCraftsDigitals]

I remember clearly the fear of nuclear war. I was 16 when this program came on the TV and I said at the time that there was only men in charge and no women and my Dad said "no, there will be a few women in the bunkers to do the cooking and secretarial work!!!! Thats how it was in those times.

[@LeofromFreo]

And I bet you still can’t cook or do your own housework. Nothing changed.

[@ScrappyCraftsDigitals]

@@LeofromFreo I'm a very good cook and I do all the housework thank you very much!

[@SM-ce1uy]

Last thing I'd focus on is cooking if in a bunker.

[@ryansmith4494]

Kinda messed up, but I did chuckle.

[@parkerk6210]

I was a young child in 1987 & In OCTOBER 87 a hurricane hit at 111mph. We had no power for 19 days! Not one council staff member helped! We were on our own as the state did bugger all to help!

[@thewomble1509]

"Naptonshire" was actually based on Nottinghamshire,

[@PercyPruneMHDOIFandBars]

To be completely honest, as I grew up in this period, I certainly wouldn't want to survive the initial attack. The nuclear winter that follows would mean survival would be brutal and unlikely.

[@vhayes2257]

3:10 ... would you mind running this by me again, sir? I may not have heard you correctly.

[@Me97202]

They can plan all they want, but their plans will break down quickly with the reality and effects of what we’ve done to ourselves. “Surviving” won’t necessarily be that desirable.

[@RicardoD957]

For me this all seems a bit too calm.

[@kubbayioka1858]

I wonder if those mock newscasts are lying around somewhere.

[@adieblackmore54]

All to real at the moment sadly

[@MXarcx]

This needs to be turned into an actual video game like diplomacy. Could be quiet insightful.

[@senorelroboto2]

Is anyone else bothered by their Rubik's cube logo?

[@magnus800]

Never got to go to one of these, but I did get a chance to do a desk exercise which was grim as hell.

[@olivere5497]

Do share!

[@magnus800]

@@olivere5497 was so casual discussing securing food from them the local supermarket. Converting our cell for living in. Seemed like a poor joke digging holes to use as a toilet. Where I was stationed we were with 5 targets and we’d be hit with blast so there was zero chance to survive.

[@Sol-Cutta]

We're now living the sequel.. russian nuclear war 2.

[@sarah6557]

🙄🙄🙄🙄😂😂😂0k

[@grahamfisher5436]

B52 Bombers are now here, in RAF airbases in Gloucestershire.

[@Sol-Cutta]

@@grahamfisher5436 do u think that's a bit suspect?? Have they moved them to a more secure locale strategic wise or ready to deploy do u think or is it impossible to speculate ?

[@Sol-Cutta]

@@grahamfisher5436 are b52 still the only planes able to deploy nuclear armed weapons?? Save me Googling lol

[@solcutta3661]

Working from the ludicrously ridiculously out dated 1950s civil defence information which included painting windows white and laying doors vertically against walls as fallout shelters. Lol.. Verdict =widespread death and failure.

[@almostfm]

OK, what's the plan you've come up with?

[@zippymufo9765]

Depends on where you live. If you were a good distance from a target area, then that shelter is to protect you from flying glass and fallout, not from the actual blast.

[@jamiemackie3994]

Talk about being high browed.

[@colinstewart1432]

Operation Squeaky Weasel. 🌐

[@ellemjay]

"One would think that given the excess casualty rate, shoes would be extraordinary plentiful." AAAHHH

[@colettenasielski2885]

Hopefully everything goes okay

[@popemalevolent1]

Crazy that they even bothered with post nuclear plans for law and order and protecting the family. It would be utter hell that no one would be able to deal with! If you are unlucky enough to survive the blast you'll be fighting other half fried mutants for rats to live on. The thought that any semblance of our lives would be intact is completely insane

[@keithnaylor1981]

Well the first ad at only 1 minute 48 secs destroyed my interest in the programme quicker than any nuclear missile could.

[@zcorpalpha2462]

I don’t understand

[@josephthemann1174]

So would these people

[@TheIppus]

Forget Oregon Trail and Lemonade Stand. I'd have played the crap out of this in the 80s...

[@ryansmith4494]

O.o What was Lemonade Stand? Exactly what it sounds like?

[@KingThrillgore]

I always felt like the UK got the short end of the stick with the US basing its missile detection system (BMEWS) there. Hell of a way to treat your ally. Also: It looks like Thames yanked a Protect and Survive clip out of this due to rights issues.

[@foreverhungry84]

our island is so small that there would be zero escape from nuclear blasts or fallout. these programs were made to make the public think the gov were doing something and that it was possible to survive. we would be a smouldering crater

[@SM-ce1uy]

@@foreverhungry84 yup only RF and govt have bunkers atm. We don't even get the luxuru of an alert system since all air raid sirens were removed in the 90s. I just pray i am not in the office but at home if it happens. Last thing I want to do before is work amongst strangers

[@grahamfisher5436]

@@foreverhungry84 exactly.. this was realised back in the 60's. just a false public confidence exercise. if they go off!? we're gone!?

[@JamesTilsley1]

Naptonshire looks suspiciously like Nottinghamshire

[@RobertLocksley385]

There were few targets across Notts, but many nearby ones including RAF Digby close to Lincoln, Sheffield, RAF Fynningley close to Doncaster, the RLC HQ at Grantham (a brigade sized logistic, transport and training facility) and all the RAF bases across Lincolnshire, Cambridgeshire and Leicestershire. There would have been few attack casualties but huge levels of fallout and starvation given the contamination of the large agricultural areas of the county after any attack.

[@simonegan3698]

Is Phil an Elvis impersonator?

[@amandab.recondwith8006]

Absolutely comical. None of these men have families? In reality, most of them would probably be jumping into their cars to get the wife and kids! And, of course, they ALL die.

[@olivere5497]

Imagine if one of them actually freaked out, and ran off doen the street doing simulated screaming ?

[@iitzfizz]

ATTACK WARNING RED, IT'S FOR BLOODY REAL!!

[@mortenlond3311]

IS IT?

[@NothusDeusVagus]

Too clean... Too calm... Certainly appropriate words were being said and ideas were being bandied about but there was no sense of pressure. No sense of consequence for the choices made. No sense of connection to the outcomes. For such an exercise to be anything approaching a success the participants need immersion but going by their reactions and responses to the scenario, no such link was made or appreciated. The participants needed to be provided some kind of emotional link with the scenarios in play and their important part in them instead of the insanely calm and measured manner in which the controllers dispassionately presented it. As it was, They all might as well have been chatting about an upcoming county cricket match or Parish Fete. What should've been done by the organisers is a conducting of interviews of those who lived through the War years of WWII, especially those associated with the Damage control and rescue and recovery actions (not just exercises) that were carried out during the BLITTZ. Has England so soon forgotten the mistakes and hard earned lessons of it's past? Does that mean England will have to re-live them?

[@silenthunteruk]

3:18 Grim!

[@mrlemm2030]

There's a early warning bunker a couple of miles from here, I use to see them up there 30+ years ago, they haven't been there for years..their cars use to block the lane. Not very secret, very secure thought because as naughty teenagers we did try to get in there a few times..

[@erneststoner2336]

It's the Benny Hill Show.

[@wbell539]

a. We're depending on the world's governments to help us survive a nuclear attack. Let that sink in for a moment. b. Surviving a nuclear attack: why would one bother?

[@Superman20000]

There will not be a nuclear war simply because it's bad for business. But the idea of it is very good for business​. Why bother, you're right

[@patdbean]

@@Superman20000 the problem is not the big declared nuclear power , but the country that you assume has no nuclear weapons BUT after you attract them with conventional weapons you quickly discover that they HAVE!

[@olivere5497]

Because the establishment needs people below it, otherwise the entire thing is meaningless.

[@ChrisSmith-lo2kp]

where'd you go, in your safe European home? - The Clash

[@rapierduell]

They are all such posh wimps.😂 The raiders would make short work of them. Police and army will no longer get paid so would not protect them. Chain of command will not exist.

[@cjmillsnun]

*defence. We're not Americans.

[@chriswaring5565]

PHILLIP WHAT DO ASSUME FROM THERE I MEAN WHAT DO YOU DO? WELL I SUGGGEST IF YOU DONT WANT TO END UP LIKE THE LAST BURGER ON A BBQ GO TO THE SHELTER

[@mng4643]

How is the tv and phone's still working?

[@SpeedbirdAircrew]

Good point well put, how the ROC comms would ever work is beyond me

[@SimonTolchard]

Hardline between bunkers for phone and telex , any -external- TV broadcast would end due to blast/heat and EMPs', main bunkers also protected their EMP-sensitive equipment via Faraday cages or the whole bunker was, itself, designed to be a Faraday cage ...

[@bardo677]

This better not be fake

[@bardo677]

whos on training pidgeons?

[@bardo677]

you can eat worms cant you? Thank god for im a celebrity suddenly all the culture whores scream

[@bardo677]

ive just decide what to get my daughter for her bd, vegetable seeds jic

[@bardo677]

exactly, dig in and del with it

[@bardo677]

*deal

[@Dadopersoblueboots]

Don't forget your badges. 😅

[@eddiedeleon2425]

kung wala pong pandemya kaya, eh pina practice po eh marahil malala na, iikot ang ulo mo

[@jimbehr2291]

I subscribed for propaganda shows like this. More please.

[@kevkeary4700]

Did we win?

[@Sol-Cutta]

Quote - remember it is only a exercise. Yes they said that a month or two before covid when they were running their covid emergency exercise....what if...coincidentally eh.

[@christiansotelo55]

Exactly

[@DS-hy6ld]

The TV stations are still broadcasting (I guess everyone's still paying their "television tax")... the participants are chillin' outside, sippin' on their tea... They weren't exactly aiming for _realism_ in this "war game," huh???

[@SS08947]

So, 08:30, NATO was the first to use nuclear weapons. Of course.

[@adamweishaupt2846]

Good to see the media have always got off on peddling a bit of doom porn to the tv watching public. Got to keep the masses in a constant state of fear and terror!

[@LeofromFreo]

In reality, no public servants will show up. They’re that useless.

[@WarrenCromartie2]

Everyone's so posh! No normaloids among them at all.

[@nathanjustus6659]

It used to be people tried to appear professional and capable. It’s only since the 1990s we revel on the opposite.

[@fasthracing]

In "real life" we just sit about and talk about s*** as we are British. No rush hey.

[@ruthieruef2185]

All male no token females that says it all and we put our trust in these people

[@sarah6557]

💯💯👍

[@VTCharley13]

Based Brits

[@olivere5497]

....its that smoking in the office with nhs glasses look which really triggers me.

[@dgattenb]

empty suits.. being gods ... what hope have we got

[@olivere5497]

Funny how back then they were all old white nen, nhs glasses, pasty white skin, belly, ash tray on every table. Not one of these people would survive.

[@nathanjustus6659]

Folks would be even less likely to survive now! Todays young are sicker and weaker than these old guys.

[@beakytzw]

Imagine if they ran such an exercise now, some woke councils would fold in minutes!!!

[@zippymufo9765]

They'd be too concerned with transgender weirdos.

[@RobertLocksley385]

Back then, many Labour local authorities refused to take part, naming their regions "nuclear-free zones", as if it would make a difference, and given that more deaths would occur given the Left's refusal to implement civil defence measures. Utter, utter fuckwittism.

[@kellyvaters1689]

Define "woke" and, for that matter, what you think the winning strategy for the exercise would be. A "woke" council with the aim to save as many lives as possible might encourage citizens to prepare their households as much as possible as early as possible, teaming up among neighbours where possible, while themselves securing food, building materials, fuel and medical supplies to provide additional assistance once fallout radiation levels have decreased enough. For too many politicians, people are numbers only and may well feel that their deaths mean more resources for the living, and that law and order is a top-down affair rather than a collaborative effort.

[@RobertLocksley385]

@@kellyvaters1689 There was a terrible problem back then of inner-city left-wing Labour party local authorities refusing to co-operate with civil defence because they believed such measures to be viewed as threatening towards the Soviet Union, I kid you not. These councils actually refused to send their members to such exercises which prior to wartime would have given the Soviets pause for thought against nuclear attack (which they did) and would have saved quite a lot of lives in the event of a nuclear war (which they probably would). The ideological selfishness of left-wing authorities who felt some sort of sick sympathy with the USSR would not have mattered when Soviet nuclear warheads were falling on cities with Labour voters like parts of London and Sheffield with high Labour party influence would have survived as long as it took to wipe those cities off the map.

[@MAGABorderSolutions]

They would be too busy announcing their pronouns, sexual preferences and mental illnesses before getting melted by the bombs. A silver lining I suppose.