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A proper horn


John K

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How odd, still find it a little unsettling listening to those sort of sirens even now!

 

I didn't even live through the depths of the fifties/sixties Cold War, but still as a teenager in the eighties, there was a genuine belief that it was odds on whether we'd ever reach out pensions or whether Armageddon would arrive from the skies in the form of ICBM's.

 

Ill aways remember being in school, a tech drawing class, in the mid eighties. It was hardly bay of pigs stuff, but it was during one of those tense "war games" where NATO and the Soviets effectively played chicken with each other.

 

When some absolute moron managed to accidentally set off one of the towns sirens -mounted on our school roof. For a minute, everyone, and I do mean everyone in the class had that "is this it" look. It's the first time I'd ever seen, not just an adult, but an adult in a position of authority, our TD teacher, look genuinely scared.

 

That was a long few minutes till the "all clear" was announced!

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This is going somewhat off topic but.. I'm very glad not to be a decade older in some ways. I was only born in January '82 so by the time current affairs were staring to register the Berlin Wall was coming down and then the Gulf War was kicking off. Nuclear war just didn't register and I don't even know if my little town had a siren.

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I'm a child of 68 so caught the tail end of the Cold War.

But my folks are Polish and went through WW2 and didn't really think anybody would be stupid enough to really do it all again, so they didn't take it all too seriously. And most kids take after their folks as how to behave, so I just obsessed over Meccano instead.

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I went to berlin before the wall came down… it was an experience.  Went with a military chap I know. 

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I was born '68 too. At the time of the siren incident, we were only a few years after the Falklands, so war seemed a close companion!

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Would be worth it just for when taking the car for an MOT

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