When the Wind Blows I adopted the title of Raymond Brigg’s graphic novel from 1982. I was thinking a lot about this book as we began writing the record. North Korea's missile testing was dominating the news for a while, with Donald Trump and Kim Jong Un seemingly playing an incredibly high stakes game of dare with each other. It made me think of this haunting book, which is made all the more macabre by the fact it is presented in comic strip form. It follows the story of Jim and Hilda Bloggs, an old-aged couple who live in the English countryside. Upon hearing an announcement on the radio about an “outbreak of hostilities” Jim begins construction of a fallout shelter, in accordance with a government-issued pamphlet, Protect and Survive. Upon a further radio announcement a couple of days later that nuclear missiles are heading towards England, the couple make it into the shelter before the nuclear explosion. After spending two days in the shelter, they decide to leave due to the aches and pains the squatted conditions are causing them, hinting to the reader that the first signs of radiation sickness are taking hold of them. Having misread the government information, they believed that they were safe to leave the shelter after two days, when the information in the pamphlet actually advised a period of two weeks. The old couple reminisce about the Second World War, whilst seemingly oblivious to the seriousness of the matter. Jim is convinced the government is in control of the situation and “knows what’s best”, whilst Hilda continues about her everyday routine of keeping the house in order. They rely heavily on their experiences from the Second World War, not understanding that the geopolitical situation has changed and this is a different kind of warfare. As their environment around them is laid to waste, Jim and Hilda gradually succumb to confusion and radiation sickness, all the while their love for each other and their faith in the government and that “things will be fine” remain unflinching. It isn’t until the exposure to the radiation has unleashed it’s full horror on Jim and Hilda’s bodies that their faith is lost. They return to the fallout shelter and die in each other's arms as Jim begins to recite Psalm 23. Jim’s confused state leads him to forget the words, though, and he begins reciting lines from The Charge of the Light Brigade instead. There are two pamphlets mentioned in When the Wind Blows that are based on actual public information series such as Protect and Survive. These sort of pamphlets go back as far as 1938, when the British government put out a leaflet, The Protection of Your Home Against Air Raids. It was updated after the Second World War to Advising the Householder on Protection against Nuclear Attack which was originally published in 1963, around the time of the Cuban Missile Crisis. Protect and Survive was published in 1980, shortly before Briggs began work on When the Wind Blows. Briggs was not the only one to criticise the pamphlets about preparation for nuclear war. One of the best-known critiques was E. P. Thompson's anti-nuclear paper, Protest and Survive, playing off the Protect and Survive series. Criticisms like Protest and Survive point out the inadequacies of the preparation procedures posed by the pamphlet Protect and Survive. In contrast, by the comic format or graphic novel genre, Briggs is able to depict a more realistic account of the effects of nuclear attack on civilians, like Jim and Hilda. In When the Wind Blows, Jim makes reference to the bombing of Hiroshima and uses his knowledge of that event to infer what could happen to him and Hilda and to make sense of his own experience before and after the nuclear attack. Unlike the nuclear preparation pamphlets, Briggs's depictions of Jim and Hilda's experience with radiation sickness actually align with real accounts.

Four-Minute Warning The four-minute warning was a public alert system conceived by the British Government during the Cold War and operated between 1953 and 1992. The name derived from the approximate length of time from the point at which a Soviet nuclear missile attack against the United Kingdom could be confirmed and the impact of those missiles on their targets. The population was to be notified by means of air raid sirens, television and radio, and urged to seek cover immediately. In practice, the warning would have been more likely three minutes or less. The terror such a broadcast would cause is inconceivable. The following are the opening lines from a script that would have been broadcast on the BBC in the event of an attack, read by Peter Donaldson, chief continuity announcer for the BBC: “This is the Wartime Broadcasting Service. This country has been attacked with nuclear weapons. Communications have been severely disrupted, and the number of casualties and the extent of the damage are not yet known. We shall bring you further information as soon as possible. Meanwhile, stay tuned to this wavelength, stay calm and stay in your own house. Remember there is nothing to be gained by trying to get away. By leaving your homes you could be exposing yourself to greater danger.”

Convenience/Ethics Ratio Dead Kennedys titled their 1987 compilation album Give Me Convenience or Give Me Death as a critique on what they viewed as excessive American consumerism at the time. Almost twenty-five years later the world is in the grips of both a consumerist as well as an epidemiological pandemic; the former merely amplified by the latter. The faster and simpler access to commodities is made, the more we consume. It is not only commodities that are a finger touch away, though. Information is more accessible today than human beings have ever experienced, giving a great many of us the tools to unlock our consciences. Submitting to convenience doesn’t make us bad people. There are currently over one billion Apple devices in use across the globe. Many of these devices are made at Apple’s Foxconn plant, where working conditions are so bad that they have suicide nets on site. Owning an Iphone doesn’t make one a bad person. There are similarly dark backstories behind many, many other conveniences we allow ourselves, whether it is purchasing clothes made in sweatshops in the third world or taking a ride in an Uber cab. Consuming these things doesn’t make us bad people, but it does imply that we lack the channels of empathy provided by awareness. What we can’t see, we can’t feel. Empathy is selective, however. Some loosely defined types of empathy are: Direct empathy - Things you can empathize with because you’ve directly experienced them yourself. For example, being a parent; Indirect empathy - empathy for things that are in your cultural realm of understanding. For example, being in love or having a religious affiliation; Samaritrophic empathy - Simply put, this is empathy for what you can see, or relate to, but being indifferent to that which you can’t. This is why we are often emotionally affected more by catastrophes that happen closer to home rather than farther away, both geographically as well as culturally/ethnically. We have to force ourselves to be aware of the ethical consequences of our consumerist actions. This is in turn waged against the pull of convenience makes this a constant battle, and the ratio of the one against the other is pivotal in defining our choices.

A Black and White Sky Inspired by a chapter from Herta Müller’s novel, The Fox Was Ever the Hunter. Müller’s novel is set in Romania in the final month’s of the Ceaușescu regime. The chapter describes the emotions the story’s main protagonists experience as they watch black and white television footage of a defining moment in the demise of the dictatorship. The moment the masses dared to rise up and vent their opposition to the regime, in spite of the constant threat of persecution at the hands of the Securitate. They sit elated whilst they watch the news coverage as the crowd shouts Ceaușescu down, refusing to let him speak, until finally a bodyguard pulls him away from the balcony. Adina, one of the girls watching, begins to cry as the crowd surges in front of the Central Committee building, they are finally daring to believe the regime will fall. They know if Ceaușescu runs he’s dead. “A helicopter hovers above the balcony of the Central Committee. And then it gets smaller and smaller, a floating gray point of a needle that eventually disappears. On the screen is an empty black and white sky.” This was the morning of December 21st, 1989. In the aftermath of the Timisoara uprising and fearing that he was losing grip of his dictatorship, Ceaușescu had organised a rally in front of the Central Committee building. Over 100,000 were in attendance of what was essentially a grotesque PR exercise. Busloads of workers were rounded up and forced to attend on the threat of being fired, whilst given red flags and pictures of the dictator to wave around, The whole event was televised. Ceaușescu listed off a litany of the achievements of the “socialist revolution” but he had badly misread the mood of the crowd. Jeers and boos soon turned to full scale rioting, leaving his bodyguards with little choice but to remove him from the balcony. Three days later a new government was in place. The day after that, Christmas Day 1989, Nicolae Ceaușescu and his wife Elena were tried for their crimes and sentenced to death. They were executed by firing squad later the same day.

Rods From God The idea of kinetic bombardment was flaunted by the US Air Force during the era of the Cold War. The idea was to drop a bundle of tungsten rods measuring around 20 feet in length from orbit which upon descent to the earth's surface would reach a speed of up to ten times the speed of sound. The rods would penetrate hundreds of feet into the earth, destroying any potential bunkers or secret underground sites. It would create the same force as a nuclear weapon without any of the radioactive fallout. The idea was originally conceived by Jerry Pounelle, a science-fiction writer and “space-weapons expert” sometime during the 1950’s whilst employed at Boeing. The concept never came to fruition due to financial issues.

J'Accuse…! was an open letter published on January 13th 1898 in the newspaper L’Aurore by French writer Émile Zola. In the letter Zola accused the French government of antisemitism and the unlawful imprisonment of Alfred Dreyfus, a French Army General accused of espionage. Zola knowingly risked his career to stand up for Dreyfus. The letter was printed on the front page and caused a huge stir, both domestically and abroad. Zola, one of the most influential writers of his time, was charged with libel and fled to England to avoid being imprisoned himself. Four years after the letter was published, Zola died from carbon monoxide poisoning caused by a blocked chimney. In 1953, the newspaper Libération published a death-bed confession by a Parisian roofer claiming he had murdered Zola by blocking the chimney of his house.

The Manifesto of the Students of Munich “It is such a splendid sunny day, and I have to go. But how many have to die on the battlefields in these days, how many young, promising lives. What does my death matter if by our acts thousands are warned and alerted. Among the student body there will certainly be a revolt.” These were the last words of Sophie Scholl, spoken to Else Gebel in the cell they shared, shortly before being taken away and executed. Sophie was a student and anti-Nazi politcal activist, active withing the White Rose non-violent resistance group. She, and her brother Hans, were executed by guillotine for distributing anti-war pamphlets at the University of Munich. The charge: high treason. The White Rose movement, horrified by reports of Nazi war crimes, sought to encourage other Germans to passivley resist the Nazi government. The group had been secretly distributing pamphlets around the university campus and building momentum within their movement up until the Gestapo arrested the main members of the group. At the time they were in the process of authoring a sixth pamphlet, but upon arrest the group attempted to disperse of their work, Hans tried to destroy the last part of the draft by tearing it and swallowing it in his cell. The attempt did not succeed. Hans confessed to authoring the pamphlet under interrogation of the Gestapo, however, in an attempt to save the group Sophie assumed full responsibility. It was to no avail. All of the leading members of the White Rose movement were swiftly tried and condemned to death. After Sophie’s death, a copy of the sixth pamphlet was smuggled out of Germany and finding its way to the UK, where it was used by the Allied Forces. In mid 1943, they dropped millions of propaganda copies of the pamphlet over Germany, now retitled The Manifesto of the Students of Munich. Sophie was 21 years old when she died. Her final words, and her bravery, are still honoured in Germany today, where schools and roads still bear the names of her and her brother.

Southern Horrors (For Ida B. Wells) “The way to right wrongs is to turn the truth upon them.” Ida B. Wells was an American investigative journalist, educator and early leader in the Civil Rights Movement. Born into slavery, she spent her lifetime combating prejudice and violence, fighting for African-American equality. Whilst working as a teacher she owned and co-wrote the Memphis Free Speech and Headlight newspaper. Her writing covered racial segregation and inequality. In the 1890’s Wells documented the lynching of Afircan-Amercans through her pamphlet Southern Horrors: Lynch Law in All its Phases. Wells exposed lynching as a barbaric practice of whites in the South, used to intimidate and oppress black Americans who created a politcal and economic competition. Wells’ works documented in detail the horrific nature of lynchings; she was among the first to do so. She reported in real time and fought against the propaganda of black rape that was used to justify the lynching practice. Wells was outspoken as a black female activist and faced regular public disapproval. She was active within women’s rights and the woman’s suffrage movement and was known as a skilled and inspiring speaker, travelling regularly on national and international speaking tours. Subjected to continuous threats Wells eventually left Memphis for Chicago after a mob destroyed her printing press. The so-called defence of White women’s honour allowed Southern White men to literally get away with murder according to Wells. By portraying the horrors of lynching in detail, she brought to light the horrific nature of barbaric racism in the South. In 2020 Wells was posthumously honoured with a Pulitzer Prize special citation for her outstanding and courageous reporting on the horrific and vicious violence against African-Americans during the era of lynching.