I’M obsessed with nuclear weapons and I wonder why we ever talk about anything else.

Nuclear weapons are under the sea, under the ground, and being exploded right now in tests by North Korea. Some weapons are old and worn, some are lost and unaccounted for, and some are dropped out of the sky to smash into pretty back gardens in Goldsboro, North Carolina. Some are misinterpreted by radar and warning systems, so that nuclear war has almost broken out several times because a computer assessed the rising moon or the Northern Lights as an incoming missile attack.

They are used to threaten and subdue other states but arguably, the people they threaten most are the countries who possess them because there is a huge threat from accidents, mishaps, terrorism, and radiation leaks. So even with the Cold War over, even with glasnost and perestroika, even with the Wall coming down and our leaders shaking hands and signing arms reduction treaties, the things still exist. You don’t need to be in the spectral freeze of the Cold War for nuclear weapons to be dangerous.

On a sunny day in Helensburgh, with the Cold War long since over, there is danger because these things can still terrify. They are silent but never safe. I recommend the book Command and Control by the brilliant US journalist Eric Schlosser if you want to learn of the many near-misses and accidents and the various H-Bombs which have simply been lost.

The Cold War is over but nuclear weapons certainly aren’t. They can’t be uninvented and we’re kidding ourselves if we think disarmament will one day come. The nuclear powers will always retain them, for the same reason that the US and Russia still keep vials of smallpox tucked away in a laboratory freezer. Instead of campaigning to have them gone, we should campaign for safety. These leaking, creaking, deadly things are still just machines, after all. They age and they perish and they malfunction. Yes, it’s a wonder we ever talk about anything else.

This paper regularly features news and opinion pieces about nuclear weapons, and I’ve been glad to contribute a few. Other papers do likewise, especially recently, now that we have the horrific idea of Trump being in charge of America’s nuclear triad (even though he didn’t know what the “nuclear triad” actually was.) But TV doesn’t give this topic, the ultimate topic, the same attention.

During the Cold War there were magnificent programmes and documentaries about the nuclear threat but it all dwindled away and now TV rarely mentions the subject. The people want Mrs Brown’s Boys. So give them it. Then give them repeats.

So I was surprised and glad to see A Very British Deterrent (BBC2, Sunday) but I fear it’ll be a tiny, although quite brilliant, one-off. We need more. Why is TV not grabbing this issue, as it used to? When the Cold War subsided, did they all think “Whew! Now we can just relax and do reality shows and sitcoms…”

So bravo to the BBC for this excellent documentary, with a wonderfully sarcastic title, which told the history of Britain’s nuclear weapons, a history which has sent Britain begging and simpering to America, time and again.

BUT Britain wasn’t always a nuclear beggar. British scientists played a major role in the Manhattan Project but once America had cracked the case it shoved its partners out into the cold and kept the nuclear bomb for itself. So much for the special relationship!

So Britain worked on creating its own atomic bomb and then, when the hydrogen bomb was invented, Churchill, by this time back in power, insisted Britain do likewise: it was the price, he said, for sitting at the top table.

But dingy, poor, post-war Britain needed a bit of help in this new age. Its Blue Streak missile was cumbersome and slow, and it took 30 minutes of sitting on the launch pad for its engines to warm up. With the arrival of the infamous “four-minute warning” any fool could see a 30-minute take-off period made the weapon redundant. Blue Streak was nothing but a huge, expensive sitting duck. So Britain went begging to the Americans who deigned to give them the Skybolt missiles. But they proved to be equally useless. Yeah, so what? Said Kennedy. We’ll give you some technicians too. Just take ‘em!

It was embarrassing to be offered such a dud, a nuclear hand-me-down, and yet the Prime Minister, Harold Macmillan, never seemed desperate. Rather, he appeared like a dignified old man trying to do his best.

His best, however, was a deal whereby Britain would get nice shiny Polaris missiles (pictured above) from the Americans and, in return, the US would station their own nuclear subs in Scotland – horribly close to Glasgow.

Macmillan protested – a rare example, surely, of a Tory PM defending Scotland – saying it was too near to this huge city but Eisenhower insisted: his men wanted the bright lights. He couldn’t expect them to slum it in the middle of nowhere! Apparently, they needed drinks and gals and Sauchiehall Street!

Much of the programme was devoted to dramatisations of this deal, with the breezy Americans setting out their demands, and poor old Macmillan in his pinstriped suit trying to plead for common sense, while unsuspecting Glasgow sat in the middle.

What can cop shows and family dramas offer which can even come close to such a horrifying, troubling story? Please, BBC, more of this! It’s history and drama rolled into one.

And even though I’ve just spent ages slagging off sitcoms and demanding more history, I loved Motherland (BBC2, Tuesday), a pilot sitcom about the maddening stresses of being a working mother.

Julia (played by Anna Maxwell-Martin, pictured right with Paul Ready as Paul) is trying to get her brats to school, but everyone seems to be working against her: the smooth and blonde yummy mummies at the coffee shop who don’t need to work; her exhausted mother who refuses any more babysitting, and her patronising husband who leaves it all to her so he can spend more time choosing pastries in Costa.

The comedy lies in her not being a suffering, saintly mother but in her being bloody fed up with it all, and not being afraid to show her frustration. Her annoying children aren’t even granted names. They’re just irritants and obstacles in prim little school uniforms.