Topics: Film Trafficking Agent Found After Plea By Documentary Makers

The identity of a man who played a ‘nightmare’ traffic warden in a 1980s post-apocalyptic drama has been revealed after an appeal to find him.

Now 84, Michael Beecroft was a real-life traffic cop who did a bit of extra work at the time.

He said the shoot was “just a day’s work” and he was unaware of the image’s impact.

Written by Kes author Barry Hines, the film detailed the unrelenting impact of a thermonuclear explosion on ordinary people in Sheffield.

Mr Beecroft, who has lived in Barnsley all his life, said at the time he was on the club scene, traveling around Yorkshire and the north of England for gigs.

But work was “drying up” so he took a job as a security guard with South Yorkshire Police, as well as working overtime.

The then 44-year-old recalls that it was a “very cold, wet and rainy Sunday in February” when she left for the shoot.

He said: “My agent called me and said there was this job available, so I went down and was selected and compensated as a traffic agent.

“I didn’t do anything other than the 30 second shot with the rifle yelling some swear words.

“After that they took a few pictures and I went home and didn’t think about anything else. It was just a day’s work as far as I was concerned.”

Mr Beecroft said he thought of nothing else that day until he received another call from his agent a few months later, asking if it was his Radio Times photo.

He recalls: “I said I didn’t know, but when I looked I realized it was me.

“I didn’t think it was that important.” I assume you don’t at the time.

The image, used to publicize the film’s release, shows Mr Beecroft as a wounded traffic officer – the wounds were actually plastered with cornflakes – whose job it was to keep desperate people looking for medical help or food on the tennis courts.

Craig Ian Mann, who is working on a documentary about Threads to accompany its US Blu-ray release, said the image had “become the iconic image of the film” and made a plea to track down the then-unknown traffic warden . talk to him about the role.

However, unbeknownst to Mr Mann and his co-writer Robert Nevitt, BBC Radio Sheffield managed to track down Mr Beecroft with the three men first meeting on Thursday’s breakfast show.

Mr Beecroft said he had no idea people were trying to find him and was “blown away” by the interest in his role.

He said over the years that he didn’t talk much about the role he played, other than a few of his friends who knew about it.

Asked by Mr. Mann if he had any idea how iconic his character had become and being made into an action figure, he replied: “Wow, I didn’t know that. I’m totally amazed by the reaction people have. he got over it.”