Flashback

I have an image in my head that I can't place. Maybe an artwork, maybe an album cover, maybe a CND poster, or a film flyer. A clear blue sky, maybe some silhouettes of buildings - skyscrapers - at the edge and, in one corner, a small silhouette of an aircraft. Somehow it's obvious the aircraft is threatening; a bomber; possibly Enola Gay, or a B52. I can't remember any more

Does this ring any bells? It's probably from back in the 70s. Maybe it's obvious and I'm going to look foolish. The Internet couldn't help me. Maybe it's something bubbling from my own subconscious, or something minor and local, that no-one else has ever seen

Pruning the apple tree, in a keen wind, at 4°C - my neck arched back, my arms straining to steer the pole through the tangled branches - I heard the sound of a jet engine. Looking up, I saw the plane, high above the thin cloud, shining in the low, bright winter light. 'Silverfish' was the word that flashed into my mind - small, glistening, a little uncanny. And then the picture I described - the awful little bomber in the beautiful sea of blue

I was too slow to capture the plane; another fleeting image

We are edging back to the collective anxiety of the 1970s. Mushroom clouds, bunkers, brown paper soaked in urine, Protect and Survive. Unhinged men in high office; spies, expulsions, bluff and double-bluff, ultimata, mutually assured destruction. Images of fear; images of war