In every house in which I've lived, and some I've only visited, I check and see if there is a place where I could construct a nuclear bomb shelter. I'm not talking about a proper underground bunker with yard-thick concrete walls, air shafts or miniature water purification plants, although I would happily sell my soul for a chance to stay in a house that was accessorised by such a thing. What I mean is a place where I could build an inner refuge out of doors and bin-bags filled with earth. I look for nooks and crannies that are furthest from outside walls and windows, or the roof, where there is less chance of radioactive dust settling on you. Cellars and basements often have ventilation holes, which would render them lethal in the aftermath of a nuclear attack. I need a spot right at the heart of the house where there is no way any cancer-causing crap could get to you.

I am glad to say that the hallway of the house where I live now is the most nuclear-secure spot I've ever owned. I have plenty of heavy furniture that I could load up around me, all the junk that I've hoarded would finally come to good use. I can so easily see myself building a shelter like the Dad in the 'Protect and Survive' booklet, then herding in my non-bio family, including the dog. I loved making little dens for myself out of sheets and tables as a kid, how different would this be?

The nuclear arms race is just fodder for more nostalgia these days. 'Threads' looks funny now, the special effects are so lame, people have bad 80s hair, some stylist should do a mag shoot based on it, in fact they probably already have. Nuclear test footage would be great in any music video. You can go and visit a giant bunker in Essex, it's a second-rate tourist attraction, you pay a fiver and wander around with a semi-broken walkman to narrate the experience for you. Here are the decontamination rooms, here is the morgue. Sometimes I half expect to see an 'I heart the Cold War' clipshow on Channel 4. It's unbelievable how things develop in ways you never expected.

But I can remember sleepy-eyed teenaged mornings when I awoke much too early to see an incredible sunrise over North Wembley from my bedroom window, all orangey and pink, dust-clouds streaking across the sky, new light, and thinking: They've done it, they've dropped it on us. Pounding pounding heart, try to sleep again. Existence felt so fragile. I really wondered how I would survive the flash (point away from the blast, hold hands and a cushion in front of face); the blast (duck and cover, hope that building does not turn into splinters as did the test house on all that endless footage I watched); the fallout (there is no escape, know that every breath is poison, wait and die a horrible long death, minus teeth, plus haemorrhoids as in 'When The Wind Blows'). Whether or not you wanted to survive a nuclear attack was a subject to which my friends and I often returned.

And now giant buildings do explode suddenly, out of the blue, and just turn to dust. I am still afraid of my teeth falling out, and of carcinogens floating around me. There are wars around every corner, and there are new superpowers. What's to be done? We need a Dad to build us a shelter in the middle of our house, we need to stockpile canned comfort food and make body-bags out of bin-liners, we need a leaflet that will reassure us, and we need to tune into the BBC for advice, assuming of course that the world is still out there when we emerge.

Look at the cool retro bombs.

Protect and Survive