A point is all that you can score

Watching Made in the 80’s tonight and hearing Patrick Allen announce ‘when you hear the four minute …. Took me straight back.

The height of the Cold War… and I didn’t know what the Cold War was; I knew I was terrified and frequently had nightmares about Mushroom clouds.

I told my da I wanted him to build a shelter for me… in the hall cupboard which was protected on all sides by other rooms …. 12 foot down with a tunnel into a bunker in the garden.

Failing the bunker being ready .. the cupboard itself would suffice so long as all the room doors were removed and fastened over the windows. - which also had to be painted white to reflect the nuclear flash.

Not that we stood much chance of survival - I knew the radius of a nuclear drop and living a mere four and a half mile from an airport - we were within the five mile all dead radius.

It is terrifying to realise I knew all this - and I still gaze at our under the stair cupboard in here and think … maybe we should really think about it.

It’s terrifying to realise how close it came