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Cultures of nuclear resistance in 1980s Liverpool

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  03 August 2015

JONATHAN HOGG
JONATHAN HOGG*
Affiliation:
Department of History, School of Histories, Languages and Cultures, University of Liverpool, Room 1.05, 8 Abercromby Square, Liverpool L69 7WZ, UK
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Abstract:

Focusing on Liverpool in the early 1980s, this article argues that localized approaches to Cold War cities can help us understand the impact of national nuclear policy on cultures of local government and everyday life. After an articulation of cultural politics in the early 1980s, this article suggests that nuclear cultures that existed in Liverpool were shaped by ideas and assumptions discursively reinforced at both a national and local level.

Type
Research Article
Information
Urban History , Volume 42 , Issue 4 , November 2015 , pp. 584 - 602
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Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2015 

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References

1 D. Hope, ‘Blinding flash of destruction’, Liverpool Echo (LE), 10 Jan. 1980, 6.

2 Evidence suggests that this process of normalization happened quickly in the years following 1945, due to the emergence of powerful and repetitive nuclear motifs in national discourse. For analysis of this trend, see van Lente, D. (ed.), The Nuclear Age in Popular Media: A Transnational History, 1945–1965 (Basingstoke, 2012)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Hogg, J, British Nuclear Culture: Official and Unofficial Narratives in the Long Twentieth Century (London, 2015)Google Scholar.

3 The term ‘nuclear’ will be used throughout this article. Although used interchangeably in the broader literature, ‘atomic’ is understood here as referring to the pre-thermonuclear era.

4 Until it was scrapped under the Local Government Act 1985, Merseyside County Council (MCC) was the highest level of regional authority for the county of Merseyside. Among other things, it controlled emergency services and strategic planning. Liverpool was one of five metropolitan districts within MCC, and became a unitary authority after 1985.

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6 Matthew Connelly has argued that we should move away from using the term ‘Cold War’ as a definitive, descriptive or analytical category. See Connelly, M., ‘The Cold War in the longue dureé: global migration, public health, and population control’, in Leffler, M.P. andWestad, O.A. (eds.), The Cambridge History of the Cold War, vol. III: Endings (Cambridge,2010), 466–88CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

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15 Ibid., 593.

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23 Ibid.

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33 See ‘Mothers in a war death pact’ Daily Mirror (DM), 5 Mar. 1984, 1. The discursive links between nuclear fear and suicide have been discussed by Hogg, ‘“The family that feared tomorrow”’, 535–49.

34 ‘In Moscow's sights: the doomsday village’, DM, 6 Nov. 1980, 5.

35 Brief examples include W.S. Churchill, ‘This sick charade that is masterminded in Moscow’, Sunday Express, 6 Jun. 1983, 7; Times, 17 Jan. 1980, 6; DM, 8 Aug. 1980, 5; Daily Express, 19 Mar. 1982.

36 Times, 19 Jan. 1980, 3; Observer, 12 Jul. 1981, 31.

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41 Wr. J. Pilger, The Truth Game, ITV, 1983.

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44 Ibid., 428.

45 Ibid., 444–5.

46 During the Falklands conflict in 1982, this submarine sank the Argentine ship The Belgrano.

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49 Sanity, May 1983, 41.

50 See Frost, D. and North, P., Militant Liverpool: A City on the Edge (Liverpool, 2013)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

51 Sanity, Mar. 1983, 20.

52 LE, Friday 3 Apr. 1981, 8.

53 Merseyside CND, Bombs Away (1983).

54 Liverpool Central Library Archives (LCLA), 328CND.

55 Sanity, Oct. 1983, 9.

56 Sanity, Mar. 1983, 37, 45; LE, 2 Apr. 1983, 3.

57 Sanity, Oct. 1982, 9.

58 Hope, ‘Blinding flash of destruction’, 6.

59 Letter from ‘Pessimist, Aintree’, LE 17 Jan. 1980, 5.

60 Letter from ‘R. Hughes, Trouville Road, Liverpool’, LE, 17 Jan. 1980, 5.

61 LE, Friday 15 Apr. 1983, 6.

62 Ibid.

63 Letter from ‘Frank Smith, Walton’, LE, Saturday 16 Apr. 1983, 6.

64 Papers of C.K. Wilson, county solicitor and secretary, MCC, estate of C.K. Wilson. At the time of publication, these papers were not archived. Please contact the author for information.

65 Ibid.

66 Ibid.

67 Ibid.

68 Ibid.

69 ‘Merseyside County Council, Special Sub-Committee Minutes (Civil Defence Issues)’, LCLA M352 MIN/2/28/9 (1983–84).

70 Ibid.

71 Merseyside CND, Merseyside and the Bomb (1983), LCLA 328CND.

72 Ibid.

73 ‘Merseyside County Council, Special Sub-Committee Minutes (Civil Defence Issues)’, LCLA M352 MIN/2/28/9 (1983–84).

74 Taylor, ‘Nuclear pictures and metapictures’, 571.