The National Archive has Public Information Films going back to the 1940s available to watch here. It's amazing some of the stuff that the Government put out in the past that it simply couldn't get away with now. The one from the 1950s about "FIVE POUNDS" is a telling reminder of what it was like before Thatcher saved us.Just remember though, Charley says, always tell your Mummy before going off somewhere.
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I can't let a post on PIFs pass without mentioning the greatest of them all: the Patrick Allen voiced Richard Taylor cartoons, "Protect and Survive", which were made to be shown in the event of a nuclear war. "Casualties" in particular has got to be the darkest cultural document anywhere in the world, surely. They weren't shown on tv until the BBC showed Threads in 1984 where they made an extremely chilling appearance as Sheffield braced itself for armageddon.
Even today watching those cheap and extremely nasty films I can't help but think what it would have been like to turn on the tv and see nothing but these bastards on a continuous loop, broken only by more terrible news from Berlin or somewhere.
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