History of Lancaster (1983: Doomsday)

The following is the history of the .

Pre-Doomsday
Lancashire was a non-metropolitan county of historic origin in the north-west of England. It took its name from the city of Lancaster, and was sometimes known as the County of Lancaster. Although Lancaster was still considered to be the county town, Lancashire County Council was based in Preston. The population of the county according to the 1981 census was about 1,076,146.

The history of Lancashire is thought to have begun with its founding in the 12th century. In the Domesday Book (1086), some of its lands had been treated as part of Yorkshire. The area in between the rivers Mersey and Ribble formed part of the returns for Cheshire. Once its initial boundaries were established, it bordered Cumberland, Westmorland, Yorkshire and Cheshire. Lancashire emerged during the Industrial Revolution as a major commercial and industrial region. The county encompassed several hundred mill towns and collieries. By the 1830s, approximately 85% of all cotton manufactured worldwide was processed in Lancashire.

The county was subject to a significant boundary reform in 1974, which removed Liverpool and Manchester with most of their surrounding conurbations to form part of the metropolitan counties of Merseyside and Greater Manchester. At this time, the detached northern part of Lancashire in the Lake District, including the Furness Peninsula and Cartmell, was made part of Cumbria.

The Pre-Doomsday Duchy of Lancaster was one of two remaining royal duchies in the United Kingdom. It had large landholdings throughout the region and elsewhere, and operated as a property company, but also exercised the right of the Crown in the County Palatine of Lancaster, which included areas that were removed from Lancashire as part of the 1974 boundary changes. There was no separate Duke of Lancaster, the title having merged in the Crown many centuries ago – but the Duchy was administered by the Queen in Right of the Duchy of Lancaster. The duchy was not the property of The Crown, but was instead the personal property of the monarch and had been since 1399, when the Dukedom of Lancaster, held by Henry of Bolingbroke, merged with the crown on his appropriation of the throne.

Doomsday
In the early hours of 26th September 1983, nuclear weapons started detonating over the UK. In the north-east of England, the major detonations were: There were also a number of small yield (5-10 KT) tactical nukes hitting various military targets and one industrial one in the area, most of which were in the vicinity of the town of Preston. These included: Fortunately, while the centre of the county took heavy damage, apart from Barrow-in-Furness, the north of Lancashire survived relatively unscathed.
 * Manchester - second wave (200 KT), re-hit with third wave (100KT)
 * Liverpool - (200KT), hit to the north of the city, over Aintree.
 * The port at Barrow-in-Furness
 * Burtonwood Army Depot
 * ROF Blackburn (actually at Lower Darwen)
 * RAF Barton Hall
 * ROF Chorley (actually north of the village of Euxton and over four miles north of Chorley)
 * DCSA Radio Inskip
 * Samlesbury Aerodrome
 * Warton Aerodrome
 * Weeton Barracks
 * Springfields nuclear fuels plant at Salwick (due to the site itself containing radioactive materials, the resulting fallout was both slightly more widespread then would be expected of a low yield nuke and a lot heavier).

Aftermath
The northernmost part of the county, which included the city of Lancaster and the surrounding towns of Morecambe, Bare, and Heysham, was particularly unaffected by the blasts and the resulting fallout. In addition, they were far enough away from other major population centers to delay the influx of refugees for several days, long enough for the authorities and population to get to grips with the situation. Even when it did occur, the number of refugees was far from overwhelming and this combined with the already relatively low population allowed order to be maintained and supplies rationed relatively easily.

The towns to the south of the county were not as fortunate for several reasons. Firstly the far closer proximity of the nuclear blasts caused greater panic then further north and resulted in greater radiation exposure (in particular, the town of Blackburn was hit by fallout from two sites while Preston got fallout from three sides), and secondly the larger population combined with an influx of refugees, who were often injured and/or suffering radiation poisoning, from the areas closest to the blasts, combined with certain opportunistic criminal elements made keeping order and rationing supplies problematic and served to increase a death toll that was already high due to radiation poisoning and injury. Although not stated openly at the time, it is later recognized that in a rather twisted way the fact that a lot of the largest towns had the highest number of fatalities in relation to their population size was almost a blessing in disguise since it almost certainly helped to prevent total starvation amongst the survivours. Simply put, the fewer people there were, the more food there was to go around.

Contact was lost between the various parts of the county immediately after Doomsday due to a combination of EMP and the electricity supply going dead. Contact was not re-established for well over a week, as people followed the advice of the government to stay indoors for a minimum of three days after a nuclear attack, followed by a period of staying close to their own towns while those in charge worked out what to do next. Eventually contact was gradually re-established by scouts from the various major towns, with contact with various towns to the south of the county, such as Preston, Blackburn and Chorley, being further delayed by the necessity of avoiding the worst areas of radioactivity around the towns.

After Doomsday
Shortly after communications were re-established in the county, it became clear that the same was not going to occur with the rest of the UK any time soon. To the south and south-east was a radioactive wasteland, while to the north and east the distance to another major population centre was deemed too great to be attempted given the limited supply of fuel and the uncertainty of even finding anyone. Additionally, traveling any distance to the east would require crossing the Pennines and by this time winter was starting to draw in. The inhabitants of Lancashire realized that for the foreseeable future they would have to go it alone.

Late 1983

 * Martial law is declared
 * Food stocks are assessed and judged to be capable of lasting for nine to ten months with extremely careful rationing (although it wasn't admitted at the time, the future death toll was factored into this prediction). Ration cards are printed and issued.
 * Quarantine and exclusion zones are established around all heavily irradiated areas. Anyone still living in, or within two miles of an exclusion zone is evacuated to a less irradiated location. Of particular note is the evacuation of Blackburn and Preston, the former of which was in the unfortunate position of being between two bomb sites, namely Samlesbury Aerodrome and ROF Blackburn, while the latter was virtually surrounded by heavy fallout. By mid-1984 over half of Blackburn had been evacuated, the remaining population being in the north-east of the city while Preston was almost abandoned altogether, the only people still living there being a few stubborn hold-outs in the Fulwood area. Another major evacuation was from the northern-most parts of Chorley . Due to the number of people who had to be moved and the distances involved it was later estimated that the evacuation effort was responsible for using up thirty to fourty five percent of the stores of petrol and diesel. Those evacuated are housed in temporary refugee camps and shelters set up in church halls, schools, sports halls and any other suitable building. However, the evacuations also turned out to provide a ray of light in the post-Doomsday darkness due to the Dunkirk spirit making a welcome appearence. In addition to government and military vehicles, countless privately owned vehicles, everything from lorries and buses to vans and cars, took part in the evacuation effort, often driven by their owners or those employed to drive them pre-Doomsday, with one van driver making a total of seventeen round trips before the petrol ran out.

1984
An emergency government based in Lancaster is formed in March, one of it's first actions is to issue an order that all open spaces and gardens in towns and cities are to be used for food production. Additionally members of the population who are not employed in an ‘essential occupation’ (i.e. health-care, emergency services or maintaining the remaining infrastructure) are urged to volunteer for farm work, as the lack of fuel has rendered a lot of agricultural machinery useless, thereby creating a greatly increased need for manpower. Making it mandatory is discussed but proves to be unnecessary due to an unexpectedly large number of volunteers, over a third of which are students from the area’s universities and polytechnics.

In early June, there is another influx of refugees from outlying towns and villages. While some are simply in search of food due to their stores running out before their crops are ready, or seeking medical treatment, others come with alarming reports of their homes being attacked by armed raiders. On July 2nd, the village of Whittington is attacked by an unidentified group of armed men. Another attack, this time on the village of Burton-in-Kendal, follows just over a week later. In both cases the attackers stole food and other supplies at gun point. Although a number of people were wounded, seven at Whittington and three at Burton-in-Kendal, there were no fatalities.

In late August an outbreak of typhoid occurs in Lancaster and the surrounding towns, killing a total of a hundred and twenty-eight people. The source of the outbreak is found to be a contaminated water supply. Lacking the resources to resume large scale water treatment, the government tries to prevent a second outbreak by issuing posters and leaflets instructing the population to boil or otherwise sterilized all water before use, be it for drinking, cooking, bathing or cleaning. Despite this typhoid and other water bourne diseases would prove to be an ongoing problem for a number of years.

The first year’s harvest is considered to have been successful, although it was a close thing, the yield having been reduced by the changes in the climate and the lack of mechanized farming equipment and fertilizers. Rationing continues, although like in the Second World War, the produce of urban allotments and private gardens is ‘off-ration’, mainly as a way to encourage people to put more effort into them. It is judged that between the harvest and the home-grown produce there should be just enough food to last until the next harvest.

Over the winter there are several more attacks on towns and villages to the far north of the county. This time there are several fatalities, along with over two dozen wounded. In response troops (former TA and regular army personnel, plus new recruits) are sent to those towns deemed most at risk to defend them, with all towns and villages on the edges of the area under Lancashire's authority being fortified.

1985
The year gets off to a bad start with further attacks on towns on the edge of the county. This time towns to the west were targeted, in addition to the ones to the north, with a total of six people being killed. However this time it wasn’t all one sided, with two raiders being killed in separate attacks, one by a former TA soldier, the other by a farmer who’d decided to put his shotgun to good use. Attempts to apprehend the rest of the raiders prove futile, with fuel supplies running critically low, the mobility of the Lancashire troops is severely impaired and the supply of ammunition is also running low. Over the following months more refugees from small towns and villages outside of Lancashire continue to arrive in search of food, safety and medical treatment.

In order to provided a steady supply of troops to deal with the ongoing threat of the raiders, it is announced in April that every able bodied person between the ages of seventeen and thirty who isn’t currently employed in food production or other essential occupations has to serve a minimum of one year in the military. Other exempted groups include women with children, all single parents be they male or female, and carers. Conscientious objectors are allowed to serve in the emergency services or in food production instead. Additionally there is a recruiting drive for longer term volunteers. It is later noted that among the voluntary recruits, over half are refugees from raided towns. As one such recruit put it, “we’ve got a score to settle with those b****ds.”

Due to the situation in the refugee camps and shelters having become unbearable due to over crowding, poor sanitation, lack of privacy ect, steps are finally taken to find a more long term solution. Surveys are done of every city, town, and village with the aim of putting together a list of any house or flats standing empty, along with hotels, caravan parks and anyone willing to take in non-paying lodgers. The refugees are then rehoused as best as possible. Although an effort was made to house family members together, it wasn't always possible and there were cases of relatives ending up at opposite ends of the county.