Cold war history

I am interested in the cold war period and am amazed at the sheer number of nuclear bunkers that were built around the UK such as the government Corsham bunker. All that money spent on developing our own nuclear weapons and then spending even more to protect themselves from the aftereffect's of such  policy's.  

Yes I am, particually 50's and 60's, particually from an aircraft history point of view. Its funny that being born in 1969 and living through the last 20odd years of the cold war I never felt it would turn nasty at any point. That feeling has only happened this year though. Very much enjoyed going to eastern Germany and Poland in 1991 just after things changed. There were still Soviet armed forces deployed there back then, totally fascinating. 

At university, I studied mostly Britain and Europe in the sixteenth to eighteenth centuries. I read less of that now, though. Now my main area of historical study is Jewish history.

I vertaimx remember how Reahan amf Thatchet seemed do kern on ecacerbating tensions, and the BBC kept comparing the size of tha weapons of each bloc. Did they see utvas some kind of backyard boy's context?

Later I heard that in 1983 we almost did manage the planet apart due to a misperception, luckily someone from the Soviet boc did keep their head. 

I couldn't understand how so many people were burying  their heads under the sand about it or trivialising it. I went on an number of CND marches, amd went on visit to Upper Heyford and Greenham Common. The paper my parents raad was absolutely rabid aboutvabout the women at thess camps and I used to get phallic-shaped objects thrown at me during family Sunday lunches. What made it even better was that my family lived nect door to someone who had bern convicted of selling secrets to the Russians, to keep his wife in furs. My father used to smoke churchillian cigars in the back garden. 

Threads was shown on British TV. 

I think to begin with an American scientist sold secrets to the Russians so that they too could create nukes. 

To Reagan's credit I believe he was genuinely horrified when someone showed him footage and movies about the destruction a thermonuclear war would wreak. However, it was the Chernobyl incident, along with Gorbachev's reforms, that brought about the end of the cold war at that time. 

Unfortunately Putin later on saw that as a humiliation, and now look where we are. There is enty of willy waving still from North Korea too. But whst do you do with a not-very evolved aggressive and terrotorial ape only 2.5% removed genetically from chimpanzes?

I'm not a Cold War history person, but my mum is.

My thing is early modern Europe- England from about the 1580s to the 1680s is the part that gets into special interest territory but anywhere from the Tudors to the Regency (and often the corresponding periods elsewhere) is still of interest to me.

I feel resentful towards the smoke-and-mirrors, and how TV portrays it as romantic.

I remember the Communist Block, and its downfall. Nowadays, we're the ones under the thumb of the State.

I used to be fascinated by the 'Soviety Union' when I was a child.

We had a careers class when I was around 15 and when asked what I wanted to be I said 'a spy'.

Of course, if I'd gone to a 'good' school I'd have been taken seriously.

Spying in Russia seemed quite romantic at the time.

The break-up of the Soviet Union and the eventual fall of the Berlin Wall were of great interest to me.

I very much enjoy learning about the way people lived in the past and what their belief systems were, of all cultures.