And one of the most beautiful areas of land in England (though that is not easy to achieve).
There won't be any illuminations: P&S Lancashire
- Thread starter Will Ritson
- Start date
And one of the most beautiful areas of land in England (though that is not easy to achieve).
Falkenburg
Monthly Donor
Wouldn't Barrow and Sellafield have had a few chucked their way? 
Falkenburg
Falkenburg
Why target Sellafield? It has no real strategic value and is of little use post-strike.
In addition to what JN1 has said, Sellafield has little value, and will possibly be a hinderance to those left to deal with it.Wouldn't Barrow and Sellafield have had a few chucked their way?
Falkenburg
Barrow, whilst important in 1984 as for world-class shipbuilding, weapons manufacture and steelworks, is an incredibly compact town of just 65,000 people. The majority of the residential areas of the town is largely dense terraced housing and (to a lesser extent tennaments), all built around the shipyard and town centre.
Within a mile of ground zero you have the steelworks, the majority of the shipyard and Royal Ordnance works, as well as the commercial and administrative centre and docks. Around 20,000 people live in this area, and a further 30,000 a mile outside it. A sub-megaton (substantially so) device would go a very long way to putting Barrow indefinitely out of action.
Falkenburg
Monthly Donor
More a case of denying the facility to any remnant of Government Post-Strike.
As noted, Cumbria would appear to be the largest un-nuked area and so would be a natural place for recovery to spread from.
Soviet Strike Planners would have recognised as much, I would have thought.
This then leads me to think that the area would have been given some attention.
The most effective way to do that would seem to be targetting Sellafield and Barrow.
(Surely Carlisle as a Road and Rail nexus for the West Coast would also have taken a beating?).
I don't know that that would be the case but given that this is the P&Sverse, the idea of leaving an area of practically skilled people and agriculturally productive land relatively unscathed seems altogether too optimistic.
Falkenburg
Carlisle took a hit, as did the communications at Anthorn, on the Solway Firth. Maybe RAF Carlisle (5km NNW of city; adjacent to large marshalling yard) and the huge munitions depot at CAD Longtown (14km N) and Eastriggs (18km NW) would be other likely targets?
FANTASIC THREAD! Made more chilling by the fact that I'm sat here in Fleetwood, where I live, reading it. And with the job I do I visit every single town so far mentioned in it.Well and truly subscribed. KUTGW!!
KUTGW indeed, very excellent.
My family live in Birkenhead and I imagine Camel Lairds was on the list. Ah well.
I'm actually interested in both NATO and Soviet planning for such a scenario. Would they simply be interested in knocking out military/population centres or would they include areas vital to post-war recovery, like isolated farm lands. Basically did the planners have a residual human kindness to stick to war aims a wipe out 90% of the enemy or were they intent on literally wiping nations off the map?
My family live in Birkenhead and I imagine Camel Lairds was on the list. Ah well.
I'm actually interested in both NATO and Soviet planning for such a scenario. Would they simply be interested in knocking out military/population centres or would they include areas vital to post-war recovery, like isolated farm lands. Basically did the planners have a residual human kindness to stick to war aims a wipe out 90% of the enemy or were they intent on literally wiping nations off the map?
Some versions of the US SIOP did include targets that would hinder recovery, however these seem to have been dropped in later versions. Also the US plans never deliberately targeted civillian populations, but military and industrial targets, if you happened to live near one, well that was just too bad.
One thing to remember, just because somewhere was a target does not mean it gets hit - see Portsmouth and RAF Leuchars for example.
One thing to remember, just because somewhere was a target does not mean it gets hit - see Portsmouth and RAF Leuchars for example.
Targeting Non-Military Targets
We may have to consider the Soviet view of warfare not only between nations, but between classes within nations, as noted by many Soviet authors post 1965. By attacking non military targets, they may deny them to the enemy, but they may deny the working classes of Britain the means of production following a successful socialist revolution.
On the other hand, Soviet military thought also emphasized that wars between multinational coalitions were going to be wars of attrition.
Of course, this could be smoke and mirrors, but it represents senior Soviet thinking away from nuclear war into nuclear/conventional war.
We may have to consider the Soviet view of warfare not only between nations, but between classes within nations, as noted by many Soviet authors post 1965. By attacking non military targets, they may deny them to the enemy, but they may deny the working classes of Britain the means of production following a successful socialist revolution.
On the other hand, Soviet military thought also emphasized that wars between multinational coalitions were going to be wars of attrition.
Of course, this could be smoke and mirrors, but it represents senior Soviet thinking away from nuclear war into nuclear/conventional war.
Thanks all for the feedback. TLs are always more chilling when they are set on your doorstep!
MarkJones980:
Fleetwood is the recipient of minor damage, mainly from the blast at Blackpool Airport, however, being at the end of a peninsula and having to get close to both the airport and, certainly, Inskip to get "out", won't help matters for many.
Jape:
Birkenhead won't be much fun right now, the recipient of one of the several "Liverpool" bombs.
Next up, the day after the night before and the joys of the M62.
MarkJones980:
Fleetwood is the recipient of minor damage, mainly from the blast at Blackpool Airport, however, being at the end of a peninsula and having to get close to both the airport and, certainly, Inskip to get "out", won't help matters for many.
Jape:
Birkenhead won't be much fun right now, the recipient of one of the several "Liverpool" bombs.
Next up, the day after the night before and the joys of the M62.
M62
Hi Will. First thanks for such and engrossing time line. Second could I ask for 'some more please sir' especially if the M62 gets whacked. After 4 hours on it recently I bear it a personal grudge which can only be settled with thermo-nuclear retribution Thanks again
Hi Will. First thanks for such and engrossing time line. Second could I ask for 'some more please sir' especially if the M62 gets whacked. After 4 hours on it recently I bear it a personal grudge which can only be settled with thermo-nuclear retribution
Thanks again 
Subscribed! Bleak, sad, dreary... in other words, well done!
Looking forward to the mother of all ebook PDFs with all the Protect and Survive universe timelines arranged in chronological order.
Looking forward to the mother of all ebook PDFs with all the Protect and Survive universe timelines arranged in chronological order.
3. This is how it feels
Husband don't know what he's done / kids don't know what's wrong with mum / she can't say, they can't see, putting it down to another bad day
-----
The boy and his brother lived in Ulverston in Cumbria, and they weren't having much of a school holiday. They had hoped to be watching Roland Rat, but for some reason it was always the news. Even the BBC kept showing those strange adverts about hiding in the pantry.
The eldest boy*, six years old - or seven on Friday as he preferred to put it - knew something wasn't right. Mummy couldn't understand why Daddy was still going to work. Daddy said something about duty, and Mummy replied bugger your duties, what about your family?.
Daddy, the boy knew, worked at the shipyard in Barrow, or Vickers, as everyone called it. He built boats and submarines. There'd been a lot of extra shifts and Daddy had worked a back-to-back night and a day. Mummy wasn't happy, especially because Daddy had promised to clear out the cubby hole and put some camping things in there.
No bugger else is gaan in. Mummy had said. We need to get a lile bit o' shopping in.
Anyway, Daddy managed it on Monday night, and the two rooms - the cubby hole under the stairs and the middle pantry - looked quite tidy. It was very dark, thought the boy. It would be nice if there was a window inside. His concerns weren't helped when Daddy began to board up the windows on the back hallway opposite the cubby hole.
-----
On Monday night after work, Daddy took the eldest boy down to the beach at Canal Foot with his bucket and spade. Sandcastles! Daddy filled old bags and sacks with sand, which the boy thought was boring. Much less fun than a castle with a moat. Daddy did as much as he could, and even though it was dark within an hour he made three trips in his Sherpa van.
When the boy got up on Tuesday morning the bags of sand had been placed close to the doors of the house. The cubby hole was full of tins of food and pop bottles full of water, with a small camp stove. The porta-loo from the caravan had been moved into the house. There were four sleeping bags plus blankets and pillows.
The excitement began to become fright, especially after he saw how tired Mummy and Daddy looked. Daddy hadn't gone to work today. Mummy hadn't had much sleep.
At lunchtime Mummy came back from town, and said it was murder up there. She didn't have much. She'd managed to get the newspapers Daddy wanted, but had struggled to find candles. Daddy seemed pleased that she'd got some medicine and batteries though.
The family sat down for lunch and had a warmed up tattie pie. It was very tasty the boy would remember in years to come. As they ate their lunch the radio went silent for a few moments, before a different, more urgent, newscaster came on air. He didn't sound like one of Radio Furness' usual ones. The man said that there had been a big bomb in Germany. Mummy cried and started shouting at Daddy, before giving both boys a big hug.
Daddy went out to the garage and started bringing his tools in, putting them in the utility room. He filled up the water barrel from the caravan and a few other big bottles. He brought out a tray and filled it with cat litter. For a moment the boy was excited and thought he was getting a pet for his birthday, but Daddy's face told him otherwise.
Mummy stood in the kitchen and made sandwiches. It was as if they were going on a picnic. The two cool boxes were full of food and things. Mummy was still crying.
By tea time things were still very busy. Mummy made fish fingers and chips for tea, followed by the biggest bowls of ice cream that the boys had ever seen. Afterwards they began to wash up, when the radio suddenly changed tone again.
Come on lads, in the pantry, quick Daddy said. The boys climbed inside. Their favourite teddy's were already there snuggled up in their sleeping bags. Daddy ran to the front door and locked it with the bar across. He put sandbags by the foot of it. He did the same with the back door. Daddy turned the gas off.
The four of them sat inside. Waiting. Waiting. And then the boys heard the loudest noise they would ever hear in their lives, as Barrow-in-Furness, twelve miles away, was destroyed in seconds.
-----
The boys slept that night. They were tired. Scared, but tired. Daddy said the house would be OK as he hadn't heard anything collapse, but that they all had to stay here until it was safe again. They played Snakes and Ladders to pass the time. Every so often the radio was turned on and Daddy listened to the news, which told everyone to stay inside. The man on the radio said that the country had been attacked, and the boy thought that must have been the noise at tea time last night.
Daddy looked at his watch and said it was lunchtime, so the family had a picnic. Ham sandwiches with a Mars bar each and a Milky Way for the younger brother. Mummy said they should save the chocolate and eat the fresh stuff, so at tea time they only had fruit.
It was a long day.
-----
The dawn of 22nd February 1984 had crept westwards across a very different Europe. Over the continent people lay dead, dying or cowering in some form of shelter from the destruction that had been wreaked upon them. Some were panic stricken, finding that their home was no longer a decent shelter as such. Oldham, on the edge of the Pennines, was one such place.
Located equidistant from the blasts that hit central Manchester and Audenshaw, Oldham was a town of damaged homes and buildings. In many cases, poorly built and maintained houses had shaken on their foundations, collapsing on their inhabitants below; in other cases there had been a partial collapse of the roof or a wall. Regardless, in many cases what had been shelter the previous afternoon, was neither use nor ornament by morning.
Many decided to take their chances.
As a hazy pale sun rose over the Pennines that morning, hundreds of people in Oldham, and neighbouring towns in a similar position, such as Rochdale, crawled from their shelter and looked at the new world that awaited them. To the west were the remains of Manchester, burning and smoking away; to the south west similar for the airport at Ringway. North west another, less obvious, high - Bolton? That ruled out three options for a future.
The final choice was eastwards. Saddleworth Moor, the M62. It was a reflection of the new world that the Lancastrian felt that his best hope was in Yorkshire.
-----
M62 Summit. Highest motorway in England. 372m (1221 feet)
-----
When, in years to come, there was chance for some reflection on the death and destruction that followed The Exchange, the regional authorities in north west England attempted to put some figures on the number that died on the former M62 motorway that traversed the Pennines. Conservative estimates put the amount at around 100,000.
It snowed on the 22nd. A black, sooty, wet substance that bore no resemblance to the winter wonderland imagery that used to exist on Christmas cards. The people of Oldham and surrounding districts trudged up the hill. Most thought that heading up the sixty-two would put them closer to the "help" that was expected to arrive. Instead they found a motorway strewn with abandoned vehicles, several accidents and plenty of bodies.
The wind howled in from the west, carrying with it Liverpool and Manchester, as well as snow. The people of Oldham and Rochdale that trudged eastwards had no chance. Within hours they were sick and dying on the road to hell, or Huddersfield as it's former inhabitants referred to it.
For those that were "fortunate" enough to get to the summit there was a prize for them. It wasn't Yorkshire. It was salvation in the form of the bridge at Scammonden. The forty metre drop to the tarmac below was preferable for many than the suffering they now endured.
-----
Stillness.
Quiet.
Speechlessness and shock.
The telex machine clattered into life, startling the stunned inhabitants of the basement under a fully intact and undamaged Lancaster Police Station.
Sir, it's Goosnargh
-----
This is how it feels when your world means nothing at all
* Me
Husband don't know what he's done / kids don't know what's wrong with mum / she can't say, they can't see, putting it down to another bad day
-----
The boy and his brother lived in Ulverston in Cumbria, and they weren't having much of a school holiday. They had hoped to be watching Roland Rat, but for some reason it was always the news. Even the BBC kept showing those strange adverts about hiding in the pantry.
The eldest boy*, six years old - or seven on Friday as he preferred to put it - knew something wasn't right. Mummy couldn't understand why Daddy was still going to work. Daddy said something about duty, and Mummy replied bugger your duties, what about your family?.
Daddy, the boy knew, worked at the shipyard in Barrow, or Vickers, as everyone called it. He built boats and submarines. There'd been a lot of extra shifts and Daddy had worked a back-to-back night and a day. Mummy wasn't happy, especially because Daddy had promised to clear out the cubby hole and put some camping things in there.
No bugger else is gaan in. Mummy had said. We need to get a lile bit o' shopping in.
Anyway, Daddy managed it on Monday night, and the two rooms - the cubby hole under the stairs and the middle pantry - looked quite tidy. It was very dark, thought the boy. It would be nice if there was a window inside. His concerns weren't helped when Daddy began to board up the windows on the back hallway opposite the cubby hole.
-----
On Monday night after work, Daddy took the eldest boy down to the beach at Canal Foot with his bucket and spade. Sandcastles! Daddy filled old bags and sacks with sand, which the boy thought was boring. Much less fun than a castle with a moat. Daddy did as much as he could, and even though it was dark within an hour he made three trips in his Sherpa van.
When the boy got up on Tuesday morning the bags of sand had been placed close to the doors of the house. The cubby hole was full of tins of food and pop bottles full of water, with a small camp stove. The porta-loo from the caravan had been moved into the house. There were four sleeping bags plus blankets and pillows.
The excitement began to become fright, especially after he saw how tired Mummy and Daddy looked. Daddy hadn't gone to work today. Mummy hadn't had much sleep.
At lunchtime Mummy came back from town, and said it was murder up there. She didn't have much. She'd managed to get the newspapers Daddy wanted, but had struggled to find candles. Daddy seemed pleased that she'd got some medicine and batteries though.
The family sat down for lunch and had a warmed up tattie pie. It was very tasty the boy would remember in years to come. As they ate their lunch the radio went silent for a few moments, before a different, more urgent, newscaster came on air. He didn't sound like one of Radio Furness' usual ones. The man said that there had been a big bomb in Germany. Mummy cried and started shouting at Daddy, before giving both boys a big hug.
Daddy went out to the garage and started bringing his tools in, putting them in the utility room. He filled up the water barrel from the caravan and a few other big bottles. He brought out a tray and filled it with cat litter. For a moment the boy was excited and thought he was getting a pet for his birthday, but Daddy's face told him otherwise.
Mummy stood in the kitchen and made sandwiches. It was as if they were going on a picnic. The two cool boxes were full of food and things. Mummy was still crying.
By tea time things were still very busy. Mummy made fish fingers and chips for tea, followed by the biggest bowls of ice cream that the boys had ever seen. Afterwards they began to wash up, when the radio suddenly changed tone again.
Come on lads, in the pantry, quick Daddy said. The boys climbed inside. Their favourite teddy's were already there snuggled up in their sleeping bags. Daddy ran to the front door and locked it with the bar across. He put sandbags by the foot of it. He did the same with the back door. Daddy turned the gas off.
The four of them sat inside. Waiting. Waiting. And then the boys heard the loudest noise they would ever hear in their lives, as Barrow-in-Furness, twelve miles away, was destroyed in seconds.
-----
The boys slept that night. They were tired. Scared, but tired. Daddy said the house would be OK as he hadn't heard anything collapse, but that they all had to stay here until it was safe again. They played Snakes and Ladders to pass the time. Every so often the radio was turned on and Daddy listened to the news, which told everyone to stay inside. The man on the radio said that the country had been attacked, and the boy thought that must have been the noise at tea time last night.
Daddy looked at his watch and said it was lunchtime, so the family had a picnic. Ham sandwiches with a Mars bar each and a Milky Way for the younger brother. Mummy said they should save the chocolate and eat the fresh stuff, so at tea time they only had fruit.
It was a long day.
-----
The dawn of 22nd February 1984 had crept westwards across a very different Europe. Over the continent people lay dead, dying or cowering in some form of shelter from the destruction that had been wreaked upon them. Some were panic stricken, finding that their home was no longer a decent shelter as such. Oldham, on the edge of the Pennines, was one such place.
Located equidistant from the blasts that hit central Manchester and Audenshaw, Oldham was a town of damaged homes and buildings. In many cases, poorly built and maintained houses had shaken on their foundations, collapsing on their inhabitants below; in other cases there had been a partial collapse of the roof or a wall. Regardless, in many cases what had been shelter the previous afternoon, was neither use nor ornament by morning.
Many decided to take their chances.
As a hazy pale sun rose over the Pennines that morning, hundreds of people in Oldham, and neighbouring towns in a similar position, such as Rochdale, crawled from their shelter and looked at the new world that awaited them. To the west were the remains of Manchester, burning and smoking away; to the south west similar for the airport at Ringway. North west another, less obvious, high - Bolton? That ruled out three options for a future.
The final choice was eastwards. Saddleworth Moor, the M62. It was a reflection of the new world that the Lancastrian felt that his best hope was in Yorkshire.
-----
M62 Summit. Highest motorway in England. 372m (1221 feet)
-----
When, in years to come, there was chance for some reflection on the death and destruction that followed The Exchange, the regional authorities in north west England attempted to put some figures on the number that died on the former M62 motorway that traversed the Pennines. Conservative estimates put the amount at around 100,000.
It snowed on the 22nd. A black, sooty, wet substance that bore no resemblance to the winter wonderland imagery that used to exist on Christmas cards. The people of Oldham and surrounding districts trudged up the hill. Most thought that heading up the sixty-two would put them closer to the "help" that was expected to arrive. Instead they found a motorway strewn with abandoned vehicles, several accidents and plenty of bodies.
The wind howled in from the west, carrying with it Liverpool and Manchester, as well as snow. The people of Oldham and Rochdale that trudged eastwards had no chance. Within hours they were sick and dying on the road to hell, or Huddersfield as it's former inhabitants referred to it.
For those that were "fortunate" enough to get to the summit there was a prize for them. It wasn't Yorkshire. It was salvation in the form of the bridge at Scammonden. The forty metre drop to the tarmac below was preferable for many than the suffering they now endured.
-----
Stillness.
Quiet.
Speechlessness and shock.
The telex machine clattered into life, startling the stunned inhabitants of the basement under a fully intact and undamaged Lancaster Police Station.
Sir, it's Goosnargh
-----
This is how it feels when your world means nothing at all
* Me
Awesome........awsome update. Chilled me to the bone. Keep up the very good work mate!
Very dark bedtime reading. The stuff of nightmares - I'd have been 11 at the time, so would have been quite aware of what was going on.
Great work.
Great work.
Thank you. Much appreciated.
Contemplating my own experience in the scenario was indeed the stuff of nightmares. At least two of them. None with happy endings.
Not sure where to go with the next post. Probably the emerging scene in Lancaster.
Contemplating my own experience in the scenario was indeed the stuff of nightmares. At least two of them. None with happy endings.
Not sure where to go with the next post. Probably the emerging scene in Lancaster.