Am I misreading 50s as 80s?
I started school in 84 but don't recall any of that.
We were just shown videos about not playing on building sites / railway lines / electric substations and crossing the road while safely avoiding being abducted by the paedo in the glowing red ford capri.
(Greencloud Wanted to go fishing on, Wed 6 Jul 2011, 17:44, 3 replies)

You'd have been too young.
We were all already dead from radiation poisoning by then.
( Dr. Shambolic je suis charlie, Wed 6 Jul 2011, 18:15, closed)

That's because the government has erased your memory with microwaves

( Ring Of Fire A petty, drooling belming butthurt retard., Wed 6 Jul 2011, 18:52, closed)

Probably too young if you started in 1984
The late 70s - early 80s were the Protect and Survive era. We didn't do "Hide under your desk" drills like I've seen them doing in America, but we were certainly well aware of the adverts the government put out on television outlining what to do in the event of a nuclear strike. Mostly what I recall about those adverts was that fallout appeared to be extremely noisy. But everyone seemed to assume that it was as likely to happen as not, at that time.

My father was pencilled in to be Middlesbrough's scientific advisor in their post-strike recovery phase. He declined in the end a) because it would have meant leaving his young family behind and b) because the "bunker" they were intending to use had windows facing out onto the street so it seemed a bit pointless. He did get to keep a bunch of secret calculators and documents though - secret at the time because if anyone saw just how horrendous the after effects were likely to be then they'd get rather upset. I must dig them out, actually, they were very interesting.

I now live just down the road from the remains of a sensibly-designed underground bunker - accessed only by ladder - which was permanently manned by the Royal Observer Corps; initially they would use a Bomb Power Indicator to measure overpressure from any bomb blasts, then they would monitor the air for radioactive particles, and use this to determine the extent of the danger zones. There were more than a thousand of these posts all over the country, which gives you some idea of how seriously it was all taken.
(richardm, Thu 7 Jul 2011, 11:05, closed)

For more info...
If like me you're interested in Cold War civil defence/Regional Government structures (and who isn't quite frankly), I would heartily recommend the SubBrit.org website.

They're a research group primarily dealing with researching man-made Subterranean structures. Amongst other things, they have a detailed list of all the ROC posts in the UK.

Incidentally, you can identify anyone who has lived in Sheffield before 2002 by showing them Threads. They'll cheer without fail when the Town Hall 'Egg Box' offices get hit by the blast wave...
(cliftos2000, Thu 7 Jul 2011, 12:10, closed)