THE SOUND OF SIRENS

Today's emergency alert, which will ring out on all UK mobile phones at 3pm, is the latest in a long line of public warning systems. HOLLY SEDDON - whose chilling new thriller envisages a looming nuclear strike - writes about the unnerving reality it might one day herald

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AT 3PM TODAY, all compatible mobile phones in the UK should simultaneously emit a high-pitched whine while vibrating and displaying a test message from the Government's emergency alert system. The test is just in case, but in case of what?

Well, a bit of everything ranging from floods to terrorism to the ultimate worst-case scenario: nuclear attack. When this system was first tested nationally, in April 2023, it was met with mixed reactions. Many people did not receive the alert at all. Others took to social media to mock and meme-ify it. Some, like me, were deeply unnerved.

My fear was not because I thought it was real, but because I was writing a thriller about the effects of a nuclear attack warning and it felt like reality was overtaking fiction. The alert ringing out from my family's phones that day was a sharp little reminder that this really could happen one day.

To a child of the 1980s, nuclear fears are nothing new. I was too young to watch the 1984 TV drama Threads when it first came out, but Raymond Briggs's 1982 graphic novel, When The Wind Blows, and the 1986 animated film adaptation, did enough to both terrify me and leave me feeling that "preparing" for nuclear war was a misnomer.

When I finally watched Threads many years later, it had not lost its potency. It is available on BBC iPlayer for one more month. For anyone who thinks they would want to survive nuclear war, I recommend watching it to disabuse yourself of the notion.

Throughout the Cold War, the UK was braced for worst-case scenarios. And if nuclear missiles had been sent our way between 1962 and 1992, it was the HANDEL system that was responsible for letting everyone in Britain know.