It's hard for anyone born in the last few decades to understand the fears surrounding nuclear war people experienced in the 1980s.
A recurrent topic on news and television – in particular public information broadcasts on what to do in the event of an attack – even young children growing up in that decade were aware of the serious conversations surrounding the possibility of nuclear war.
We must remember that through the 1980s the Cold War, a 44-year period of tension between the United States and the Soviet Union and their respective allies following World War Two, was of great concern on the political world stage.
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The Cuban Missile Crisis of the 1960s, a situation many experts believe was when the world came closest to tipping over into nuclear conflict, plus the continuing arms race, only heightened geopolitical tensions and fear in the general public.
In the 1980s, a US Government's Strategic Defence Initiative called the 'Star Wars program' was proposed as a civil defence system whereby enemy missiles could be intercepted before they reached their target.
One TV advert broadcast in the US at the time showed an animation composed of child-like drawings of nuclear missiles popping against a protective rainbow arching over a smiling stick family.
However, the proposed defence system only served to escalate tensions between the US and the Soviet Union, while in Britain, members of CND (Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament) held disruptive protests at British military bases.
The UK government also produced their own pamphlet aimed at the general public in May 1980 called 'Protect and Survive', which contained information on "how to make your home and your family as safe as possible under nuclear attack."
The fears surrounding a credible nuclear attack only subsided when the Soviet Union dissolved in December 1991, bringing the Cold War to an end.
But during the tensions of the early 1980s, defence strategies were proposed as to how the UK and its major cities would respond in the event of an attack.
One document entitled 'Target North West' produced by the Richardson Institute for Peace and Conflict Research set up at the University of Lancaster in 1959, was the first independent scholarly institute that conducted research into how a nuclear attack would affect the North West of England and what would happen in its aftermath.
A copy of the report available at the Wilson Centre, an online digital archive that publishes now declassified documents, contains fascinating information as to how large cities might respond in the event of a nuclear attack.
For Merseyside, the report cites areas of both Liverpool and Wirral's docklands, as well Burtonwood military base in Warrington, Cheshire, as likely targets due to their strategic importance to the UK.
Despite the obvious devastation any nuclear attack would inflict on a country the researchers, in consultation with a regional government emergency planning officer at the time, were able to outline the plan for civil defence to ensure 'our survival and recovery to some semblance of normality after attack.'
The report goes on to describe that following a nuclear attack, plans were in place to replace central government with a system of government composed of 12 regions.
Merseyside, Lancashire, Cumbria, Manchester and Cheshire would compromise one of the regions, even citing the 'old civil defence building' under the Walker Art Gallery as where the seat of Merseyside's emergency defence operations post-attack would be conducted.
The report states: "The county chief executive will normally be the county controller, working alongside county military and police commanders and supported, in order to ease the transition to unrepresentative government, by a committee of three councillors in whom the full powers of the council will theoretically be vested."
The report also states that in the 'pre-attack period of uncertainty' the UK government had already decided they would broadcast any imminent nuclear launch to the public as a means of readying the population.
It predicts that in this period, a large number of people from Merseyside and Manchester will attempt to flee to the more rural areas of the North West, only to discover roads closed off as they become essential military routes.
Among the creation of regional government posts following an attack, there would be district food and food distributions officers, a scientific adviser, communications officer and other roles to direct health, sanitation and, rather grimly, an officer responsible for the 'burial of the dead'.
The report even cites the importance of requisitioning the school meal service for emergency feeding of the surviving population.
Concerning communications, the report says that some time after the attack, a wartime broadcasting service would disseminate information to help keep the public calm and include useful instructions on building things like shelters.
The distribution of food would also be under the control of local government, something it states would optimistically come into place within two weeks of a nuclear attack.
The report states: "The current aim is to provide 20 million people in Britain with 'half a pint of stew-type meal' a day, cooked with burning rubbish; Cumbria hopes to add a cup of tea a day. The government reportedly estimates that people could survive on this sort of diet for two years."
Merseyside would also likely have become important in maintaining the supply of the region's water as Prescot was the home of the largest underground service reservoir.
With the end of the Cold War followed programmes of nuclear disarmament between the US, Russia and their allies.
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Experts now argue the other issues such as global warming are of more pressing and realistic concern than nuclear war.
But for those who grew up in the 1980s, even the slightest possibility that an attack could happen made for a worrying time.
Looking back now, it's with more of a sense of fascination as to how emergency plans could have been implemented 40 years ago, something that could never have predicted today's communication technologies such as the internet, the changes in global politics and the increasing rise of private industry supplying many of the solutions in a modern world.
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