VOICE-OVER: When peace returned to our islands,
we had hardly taken stock of our resources
when we were confronted with a new danger,
more frightful than ever before.
We must prepare ourselves,
each one of us, to face the appalling catastrophe
that may be our supreme testing time in the history of civilisation.
Everyone must have some idea of what to do.
RADIO INTERFERENCE
I was 19 when we were put on a boat.
Christmas Island, here we come.
It was, you know, in those days, well, you just did as you were told,
you didn't argue.
You were told you were going and you went.
Didn't even know where it was or why we were going there.
Christmas Island itself
is as near as makes no difference on the equator
and location is fairly easy to understand,
roughly in the middle of the Pacific.
It's right in the middle of nowhere.
Took us four weeks to get there.
The holiday cruise that people pay a fortune for today.
There was coconut plantations on the island.
And from that view, it looked like a tropical paradise,
which it was.
When we landed, we were informed we've got to sign
the Official Secrets Act there and then.
We were told that the work we were doing
was top secret
and under no circumstances
we were even to discuss our duties with each other.
We had no idea what was coming next.
TANNOY PLAYS: In The Middle Of An Island by Tony Bennett
Someone set up, in a tent somewhere,
Christmas Island radio station.
Playing sort of music, like, you know?
Our recreation was either going out fishing or swimming
or playing sport.
There was also what they called the bar, on the foreshore.
The bar was right on the edge of the beach.
No more than 50 metres away from the sea.
You know, so a few drinks too many
and you could suddenly decide to go for a swim,
never to be seen again.
From time to time, when we got time, we'd go and have a swim.
And when you went under the water on the reefs,
they were beautiful.
They were out of this world.
Marine life was prolific.
The island itself was full of sea birds.
They were absolutely amazing.
The giant frigate birds, I used to lay on my back sometimes
and watch them soar into the clouds.
There was guillemots, divers,
Arctic terns,
gannets...
There was all manner of birds - thousands of 'em.
I mean, to us, it was an adventure.
To go abroad was unbelievable.
You know, it never happened.
Couldn't believe it! Couldn't believe it.
I mean, you know, we'd never been anywhere.
I'd come from Lancashire.
The only place I'd ever been was Blackpool.
It was everything you could have dreamed of,
but nobody knew anything at all about why we were there.
What was the purpose behind this little British Army unit
in the middle of a gigantic ocean?
It was our tropical paradise.
But within a short period of time,
we were aware that our presence on the island
brought a very dark shadow.
We soon found out that we were there
to witness nuclear weapons being tested.
Prior to the first bomb,
we were working towards creating places for it to be used,
like building the control rooms and extending the runway.
We'd create the concrete bases to park these big planes
that were going to actually carry the bombs.
We were never, ever given any information
on the size of the bombs.
My feelings were that they wouldn't put us in any danger...
..because they said they wouldn't.
"We've got nothing to fear.
"Everything has been calculated."
We got up early in the morning and we were taken
to somewhere in the main camp area, near the beach.
There was loudspeakers that was telling you all that was going on.
We were told to wear long trousers, but ordinary clothes, you know.
You'd see the plane flying round in the sky,
circling around above you.
We were told to sit with our backs
to where the explosion was going to be
so it went off behind us.
There was music playing over the tannoy system.
They were playing Hawaiian-sounding songs.
They took the indigenous people off the island.
Most of the superior officers,
they all went off somewhere.
So it only left...us.
I had to take our platoon commander off.
The place I dropped him off,
everybody seemed to have protective clothing on.
When I got back to the beach where we had to sit and wait,
I realised that none of us'd had any protective clothing.
That's when I got really, really scared about it.
We were left out there in the open
to just stand there and watch the damn thing.
All sorts of things go through your mind.
What if?
INDISTINCT RADIO CHATTER
Just prior to the explosion,
we were told, "Shut your eyes. Put your hands over your eyes."
ANNOUNCEMENT: Minus 40 seconds. Close eyes. Close eyes.
INDISTINCT RADIO CHATTER
Minus 50 seconds. 202.
Steady, steady!
Steady, steady, steady!
Now. Bomb away.
INDISTINCT RADIO CHATTER
Minus 20 seconds.
10, 9, 8, 7,
6, 5, 4,
3,
2, 1.
Now.
The flash seems to come through the back of your head.
You could see the bones in your fingers
through your closed eyes.
Bearing in mind the light was not in front of you, it was behind you.
Yeah, you could see all your bones lit up.
Brilliant white, you know.
Yeah, you could see every... every join.
And the heat was already coming through your body,
it was that hot.
I felt that it wouldn't take much more for me to combust.
It's so hard to explain because it's so unnatural.
We were ordered to turn round and view the weapon.
The flash is a thousand times brighter than the sun.
It wasn't an explosion.
It's a creation of another sun.
The hot ball of the explosion was black and red and boiling,
churning and rising, and bursting out.
Greys, blacks, greens, oranges, reds.
All the colours you could imagine, but they weren't in...
..what I would consider a pretty formation.
It was an angry, evil-looking thing.
We saw what looked like Catherine wheels spiralling.
Then it actually turned out they'd be birds on fire.
Hundreds of them burning.
A lot of them were still alive... and blind.
And then suddenly the tannoy announcer said,
"Find cover,"
because there would be a massive pressure wave coming our way.
Branches, leaves, shrub,
coconuts - everything just flew past
and you could see the trees rocking back and forth.
They were hard lads, they were tough,
but some of them were really shaking, terrified. Yeah.
People were on their knees.
It seems as if the bomb actually detonated lower
than what it was expected.
As the bomb goes up, it's like a vacuum is cleaning up everything.
I mean, it emptied an entire lagoon.
And all the sand, rubbish and all that going up.
All the marine life.
The lot of that is all going up
and what goes up must come down.
Well, of course, it rained.
It just covered the whole island
and it absolutely tipped it down with this glistening rain.
The rain wasn't normal droplets.
It was discoloured.
It was black.
That bomb was so powerful
that it just incinerated everything in its path for several miles.
The bomb itself,
it was a thousand times bigger than Hiroshima or Nagasaki.
I was ordered to form a team
to clear up that birds and fish that it had killed.
We were given no protective clothing to do it.
We went round collecting up the dead ones.
They'd just been...
..wiped out.
There were so many dead birds.
It was just impossible.
We were wading in water
and there was a floating crust of these dead birds and animals
about two foot thick.
As for the marine life...
..I can only imagine that sharks would come in and other fish
and would devour these birds, which may well be...
..contaminated.
We were told if we caught any fish, "You're not to eat them."
And I do remember that some of the lads did eat them.
They said they would light a fire and they would eat the fish.
GEIGER COUNTER CRACKLES
We never really sat down and talked about what we'd witnessed.
I think it was a situation, well, everybody's there.
We all saw the same thing.
There's nothing really to say.
Once it was over, it was over.
Nobody really discussed it at all.
It happened, and that was that.
Everybody went back...
You were back to normal.
It looked like a formidable weapon.
And it made you feel a little bit gung ho.
If that was a weapon in our armoury,
then that was one heck of a weapon.
You wouldn't fear anybody.
With a weapon like that,
you could destroy nations.
We were moving into the great unknown.
It may seem strange to say now,
but we really did believe we were that close to nuclear war.
The policy was basically mutual assured destruction -
MAD.
The acronym Mad was certainly very appropriate
under the circumstances.
If the Russians launched their missiles,
then they would be met with a direct response of exactly the same thing.
The entire continent would have been flattened.
We were all preparing for the "what if?".
ARCHIVE: On the North Yorkshire moors
is the ballistic missile early warning station
of RAF Fylingdales.
Its prime function is basic -
to alert the west of a possible Russian attack
by ballistic missiles.
To be the unsleeping eye that watches and misses nothing.
When I got to Fylingdales for the first time,
I was expecting Star Trek
and I thought it'd be like that.
It was like a science fiction film,
but something out of the 1950s.
Huge pieces of equipment.
It was just an... Really...
I'd never seen anything like it before.
I was really surprised to find out
that RCA, as in Radio Corporation of America,
the people that flog you vinyl,
actually built the ballistic missile early warning system.
Because it's not an obvious fit, is it?
One of their stars was David Bowie, wasn't it?
Didn't make any sense to me at the time.
There's a huge big dish.
160 tonnes.
There was three radars, one in each of the domes.
You had a tracker ball and a joystick,
that's how you would control the radar.
You're watching the skies, space, 24/7,
looking for any kind of attack from Soviet Russia.
ARCHIVE: But what of a threat of a Russian bomb?
Isn't Fylingdales a likely target?
Such projections have no part
in the philosophy of farmer Lorne Wilkinson.
He has farmed the heights above Fylingdales for over 20 years,
and he regards it with patriotic pride.
Where isn't there a target in the world?
There's a target anywhere.
We're all in a target. The whole country's in a target.
America's in a target.
Everybody's in a target zone.
That place there, they're our eyes.
You didn't know, especially during the Cold War,
when things might escalate.
So we always had a full team there, ready to do what was necessary.
I felt I was doing something important.
You're constantly training for war all the time.
In the event of the central government, the regions
and the counties all being reduced to rubble,
the dawn of any new civilisation in the area of Milland
will be the Rising Sun,
where Major General John Frost will co-ordinate parish efforts
to house and feed survivors.
One of the general's worries is what to do if people ignore
the Government's advice and persist in fleeing to the country.
Patrols will look out for such refugees.
If we were suddenly faced with a whole lot of people
who came out from built up areas looking for shelter, food,
then we couldn't compete.
We'd have to, then, possibly, if we got no help from elsewhere,
look around to see what we could do.
Of course, we were dealing with people who still had
memories of the Second World War
and the odd Dad's Army type characters
who had organised the community
and all that went with that.
You have, I think, been criticised by some people
for perhaps being a little too keen.
Is that fair criticism? Most unfair.
We haven't... There's no comparison at all.
We haven't tried to form a Home Guard
or anything of the sort.
All we've done is to, with the men, with the equipment, etc,
that we have available is to try to think what might happen
and how we can best use what we've got
to help life in the valley to go on as usual.
We did try and rein them in, obviously,
with their enthusiastic plans,
particularly to try and persuade them that, no,
they couldn't put barbed wire round their village
to keep other people out.
That sort of thing.
I was employed by Essex County Council
as a civil defence planning officer,
and I joined a team of about a half a dozen others.
There was this very substantial underground building
with about 20 different rooms.
Most people were totally unaware of its existence.
Obviously, we needed to practise our plans.
Everyone would get round a table
and we would play out a particular scenario.
I'm in agreement,
but aren't we forgetting those who are wandering around
dazed and shocked?
Yeah, that's why I suggest we go and do a reconnaissance.
It may sound harsh, but should one be concentrating
attention on those who may be in the damaged areas
that...? We're going to have lots of people wandering around there.
What can you do?
Well, they're going to die anyway
so what is the point in bringing them under cover?
OFF-SCREEN: On occasion, we would actually have a practical exercise
and we would actually play for real.
The fact that a nuclear device had landed in the next door county
and therefore there was radiation coming in your direction
and how they would actually handle their response for survival.
SCREAMING AND YELLING
SCREAMING: Please don't leave me! Please don't leave me!
No, I don't want to go! I don't want to go!
SIRENS DROWN OUT SCREAMS
No!
Please, please, please!
INDISTINCT INSTRUCTIONS
Basically, our role was to deal with the local community.
And we were encouraged to persuade them
to set up their own emergency community.
ARCHIVE: No parish in England, it's claimed, is so organised as Worthen.
For, in the event of a nuclear attack in the industrial midlands,
the people here in the backwoods
intend to be entirely self-sufficient.
Their headquarters is in the hamlet of Hope.
The Emergency Planning Committee should perhaps be better known
as the Band of Hope.
In the event of an explosion,
we shall immediately make for our underground support centre.
From there, we will then operate our survival plans.
This is the main communications and administrative centre
for the parish.
What, it's an underground cellar of a big house?
It is, yes. You haven't got much equipment in yet, have you?
Not at present. So, there's not...
There's no equipment here now.
But I am assured from county level
that there will be plenty of equipment available
should the need arise.
Is it radiation-proof, this cellar, do you think?
I'm led to believe that it has a very high radiation proof factor.
You're going to have to block the window up, won't you?
Yes, this will be sandbagged.
We would also take advantage
if there were farmers in the community
and what they could provide.
In the event of a nuclear explosion,
you'll be in charge of law and order? Yes.
What will you be doing?
Erm...
..finding about 40 strong men to keep the order.
Strong men? Strong men, yes.
You'll be picking the big fellas? Big fellas, yes, the big fellas.
If disaster strikes,
quite suddenly, you could be faced with the need
to leave home in a hurry.
And if this happened, you would want to take a few things with you.
Well, we advise a blanket pack. It gives you...
The Women's Institute - a wonderful body of women.
And they were obviously a very ripe recruiting ground
for people who would organise.
They don't just bake cakes.
I think I'd like to hear your ideas about what you would think
was necessary to put in this blanket pack.
Change of clothing. Yes, indeed.
A change of clothing. And sensible clothing, please.
And of course, a change of clothing
means a change of underwear and pyjamas.
Much better than a nightie. Anything else?
I think I'd like to take some make-up.
Yes, I would agree with you. Not too much, certainly.
But it's a great morale booster, make-up.
So a little bit of make-up
and I would think some tissues to take with you.
And there we have the blanket pack.
I think you'll agree,
you could walk quite a distance with that, couldn't you?
BEEPING
There was this Government scheme
whereby little boxes were scattered around the country.
If the beeps stopped, you knew you were in trouble.
If you happen to be having a quiet drink in the Bull's Head at Monyash
when the Russians decide to attack, then you can relax
in the knowledge that you are at the centre of one of Britain's
nuclear defence systems.
And this is the reason -
Derbyshire Police have installed here in the pub
an early warning system, which is operated by landlord Decio Tettanni.
Decio, have you got any idea what that thing is supposed to do?
Well, it's supposed to...
The police are supposed to let me know that the Russia are coming,
then I got about 50 minutes to warn the village.
But what are the instructions you've been given about this thing?
Well, very little.
Here is this warning - red air attack warning.
Standby for verbal message.
But most of the time, you've got the machine turned off -
what use is that? Well, I don't know.
You know, I mean, like I say, I haven't got enough information to,
you know, to handle it properly.
Well, if you think that sounds crazy, then listen to this.
They haven't yet sent Decio his warning siren.
This is how he warns the rest of the villagers of Monyash.
The Russia are coming! The Russia are coming!
Some of the plans that we wrote really did defy description
and looked very good on the page, but in terms of their actual
practical worth, is very doubtful.
I think that the principal challenges were probably trying
to persuade people that what we were doing was actually
a worthwhile exercise.
If anyone dies while you are kept in your fallout room,
move the body to another room in the house, label the body
with name and address and cover it as tightly as possible
in polythene, paper, sheets or blankets.
Tie a second card to the covering.
The radio will advise you what to do
about taking the body away for burial.
If, however, you have had a body in the house
for more than five days,
and if it is safe to go outside, then you should bury the body
for the time being in a trench or cover it with earth,
and mark the spot of the burial.
That's it.
Ken and Liz Macdonald are digging a hole in the garden.
What they're digging is a government recommended
do-it-yourself fallout shelter.
More details are given in the booklet Protect and Survive.
If you haven't got one yet, get one from the Post Office now,
and start right away making your home and your family
as safe as possible from nuclear attack.
What about this lobby outside the study?
That would be big enough for us, wouldn't it? Good idea, yes.
Just about the right size. We could block it off here.
Yes, we could block it off here. Take out this board.
Take that out there.
Block up this door. Yes.
We'd be able to sleep down here. Yes.
A concrete support there, concrete roof.
That's all right. No problems.
Newspapers and other combustibles should be thrown away.
Buckets of water should be kept handy for putting out fires.
And windows should be whitewashed to reflect the heat flash.
Grab that table over there, Andrew.
Right - now, do you think that's all right? Yes.
These things may also come in handy.
Hammer, saw, screwdriver, string or thin rope.
I didn't really realise how dangerous
a possible nuclear war would be.
And then things came on the news,
there'd be things happening in the world,
and you thought, this could end up nasty.
I left school when I was 17 and started working.
I was working in the accounts department
of a large department store in Leeds,
and I thought it would be a good idea to join
a large youth club that had plenty of activities.
And a girl at work said,
"Why don't you come to the ROC with me?"
"I've never heard of the ROC. So, what is it?"
"Royal Observer Corps."
"So what do you do?"
"Well, we plot nuclear bombs
"and the path of the radiation fallout from them.
"It's ever so good."
So, I did. I joined.
I can remember getting there
and just feeling that it was such a huge place.
That's a ground burst. And it's a big one.
This great big ops room that had a balcony round it.
And there seemed to be quite a lot of people there.
And I thought, oh, I think I'm going to like this.
It was like, um, a little tiny town underground.
When you first joined, virtually everybody started
on the display boards.
10 Post, 10 Post, can you hear me, 10 Post?
So every five minutes, the boards would be turned round.
ON RADIO: Spot size, 08.
Spot size, 08. Thank you, 10 Post.
They would be in contact with the posts...
..which are the small bunkers that were out in the countryside.
There were 872 scattered over the whole of the British Isles.
The general public didn't know where these buildings were.
They'd see a little concrete box in a field.
They hadn't a clue.
INDISTINCT RADIO MESSAGES OVERLAPPING
There were certain instruments above ground.
The bomb power indicator was like two metal discs together,
one above the other, and it would record a blast,
because when a bomb went off,
it was like dropping a pebble into a pool,
it would have ripples coming out,
and it would record these ripples.
1.0, thank you.
This man... That's it! ..and 11,000 highly trained volunteers
of the Royal Observer Corps
will be on duty to handle the emergency.
How's that, then, Bill? That's fine.
In the event of a nuclear attack on Britain,
what could a man like Bill do?
If anything was going to happen,
I'd be on my way to this monitoring post, same as today.
But there wouldn't be much time to take in the view.
The Royal Observer Corps man over 800
of these protected monitoring posts,
and nowhere in Britain are you more than a few miles from one.
Three of us run Number 10 Post.
And it's linked, like all the others,
to one of 25 group controls.
BEEPING
That's a very reassuring sound.
But what would happen if...
ALARM BLARES
Oh, it's exciting when it starts.
I always looked forward to exercises.
Toxin, 40 Post. Toxin, 40 Post.
Somebody would shout, they'd go, "Toxin!"
and whatever post had recorded it, so that the whole room was alerted
that this was the beginning of an attack.
Message begins. 15 spaces, letters Hotel Moscow Romeo...
Then it went into a higher gear.
Everybody was sort of, "This is it!"
Now we start properly, you know, and we'd be plotting the bombs
and then all the radiation reports started coming through.
10 Post. 10 Post.
I have two children, two boys.
We were always faced with this question,
if there was a nuclear war,
you were expected to go in full-time if there was an emergency.
And that meant leaving your family behind.
And you had to think about that. Would you really do it?
But I was prepared to leave my children.
Hoping that there was no explosion near them,
because you'd want your family to be...
I know it sounds awful,
you'd want your family to go, to be wiped out,
rather than die slowly of radiation sickness.
It would be hard to leave your children.
But if everybody decided
they weren't going to leave their families,
then there would have been no Royal Observer Corps to protect anybody.
I was lucky - I never had to make that decision.
RADIO STATIC
If you have taken the advice we've been giving you recently,
you will by now have chosen your fallout room.
So don't waste time.
Start right away making your home and your family
as safe as possible from nuclear attack.
One day when my young lad said to me,
"Dad, I won't live to 21, will I?",
I said, "Why?"
He said, "The nuclear war."
I looked at him and I thought,
"Oh, dear, I better get a nuclear shelter."
So I learnt about it...
..purchased the equipment to build it.
We got a metre of earth to cover the top, which obviously reduces
the level of radiation that you get in the shelter.
There weren't many individual people had a shelter.
Then I thought, "Well, we could do this for other people."
So I produced a pamphlet on it...
..and then we advertised it and marketed it.
And as the years went on, I then became who I am...
..the most knowledgeable shelter builder in the country.
There are now about 30 firms who will sell and install for you
a purpose-built nuclear shelter in any combination of steel,
fibreglass and concrete.
The amount you pay depends on size, sophistication and level of comfort.
Most are between £8,000 and £20,000.
airtight behind massive steel doors.
Filtered air is pumped in by turning a hand crank for
15 minutes every hour.
Running water from a self-contained tank, ample storage space for food
and a proper flush lavatory complete the facilities.
His firm now have the plans and equipment to produce three types,
from the small family unit like this,
costing between £5,000 and 10,000,
up to a shelter big enough to take whole communities.
The idea is to have a viable community.
It's got to be full of useful people.
And that in fact has been taken care of.
We know exactly what people we have got to put in the shelter.
Are you deliberately turning any way?
Erm...
Who you think might not be useful? Yes.
There is a selection process, there has to be, yes.
It didn't matter where you lived in those days.
Everywhere and everyone was a potential target.
Good evening.
We're going to begin tonight by asking two questions -
how would we and our families react if ever Britain was involved
in a nuclear war? And how much is being done by the Government
to protect us all if a nuclear war should happen?
I mean, you hear about things every day on the news that make you think
even more is coming.
The war is coming.
You've 'ad it, ain't ya?
Had it, ain't ya? Will you take any preparations at all?
What preparations? You've 'ad it, ain't ya? You've 'ad it, ain't ya?
Ain't messing about, is it? You've 'ad it, ain't ya?
Don't get much crying over spilt milk, is it?
If the call to arms came,
it would be answered by civilians who'd become soldiers
in just two hours.
Men like Nigel Crooks from Bourton-on-the-Water.
The haircuts may make a drill sergeant weep,
but these civilians are still technically soldiers on standby.
Suddenly, the Army was training people in nuclear warfare...
..and how to protect yourself.
We weren't frightened because we felt that we were protected
in some way or other.
Now let's join our combat team, Alpha Combat Team, who've already
been on the go for some 24 hours.
A surprise attack.
You had a suit you had to wear.
You carried a gas mask - or a respirator as we called them -
and you were trained to fight in that condition.
And not only fight, do your job, but look after yourself, too.
There's nothing worse than having to remove certain things
to be able to eat or drink.
Having decontaminated your gloves,
open the bottle...
..hold your breath and close your eyes,
rapidly lift the mask and swallow...
..replace the mask,
and blow out hard to clear any vapour from the respirator.
It was really quite tricky.
The suits were double thickness with a, like a carbon impregnation.
And it was all to protect you against nuclear radiation.
The air reading. Good, now check for clothing.
Although, frankly, whether it did or not,
nobody ever knew.
Sleep, when you can get it, requires the buddy-buddy technique.
Your buddy keeps watch while you sleep,
in case your respirator slips and exposes you to vapour.
Later, he can rest while you keep watch.
"Oh, God," you may think. "Do we have to go through all this?"
Yes, you must. And get used to it for days on end.
Fail to practise, and you'll die when it comes to the real test.
It's just as simple as that.
The training was quite severe.
It made you wonder sometimes whether it was all worth it or not.
But of course, if you're going to survive,
that's the way to survive.
There was that serious element of it - what if?
What if?
BREATHING BEHIND RESPIRATOR
FAINT BROADCAST IN RUSSIAN
System report now, system report now.
The situation there has been made more difficult
because of those folk who have ignored Government requests
to stay in their homes and who have flooded in to the county.
Level 1. Roger.
11 missiles are on their way,
7.8 minutes to impact.
HUBBUB IN CONTROL ROOM
ALARMS BLARE
Within an hour? Do we know whether it's a ground burst or an air burst?
We don't know yet. We don't really know the full details yet.
We're just guessing.
PHONE RINGS
Attack warning, red. Attack warning, red.
13 missiles tracked, six seconds to impact.
ALARM BLARES
Your message received and understood.
ALARM BLARES
This is the wartime broadcasting service.
This country has been attacked with nuclear weapons.
We shall bring you further information as soon as possible.
Meanwhile, stay tuned to this wavelength,
stay calm and stay in your own house.
Remember, there's nothing to be gained by trying to get away.
The Russia are coming.
CLOCK TICKS
WIND BLOWS
EXPLOSION
I sometimes really think that I've been left alive
to continue this story.
The remarks I'm going to make now are not remarks that we were
aware of at the time.
We were totally innocent of the fact...
..that there was a high, very high probability that what we were
eating, what we were drinking...
..and what we were swimming in...
..what we were kicking up when we were playing sports,
had been contaminated and was radioactive.
We had no idea.
Now, the decontamination crews and the scientists in their normal
operation during the day were always in white suits with respirators
and hoods, and the same went for the crews
that did the clean down.
We never had any decontamination whatsoever.
We had local showers which were used,
and we understand that they were sea water.
They weren't fresh water.
I do remember being...having a Geiger counter thingy wafted over me
because it made bleeping noises.
So I was sent back to have another shower and wafted again.
I think I was sent back twice before they let me go.
But when they let me go...
..I was given a dressing gown-type cloak to wear and told to go and get
a new set of clothes from the stores.
The clothes I'd been wearing, never saw again.
By the time we got to the next detonation, our so-called
protective clothing had changed,
down to flip flops, shorts and a bush hat.
And that's how we viewed the last bomb.
EXPLOSION
Three days after that detonation,
I was told I was going home on a plane.
We were forbidden to talk about anything.
Yeah, I got married in the October - '58.
And...
..my first daughter was born in the March...
..of '60,
and she appeared quite normal.
And then Jill was born...
..'62.
At that time, I had a fishing boat
and she loved coming out...
..when I was fishing or if I was going up the rivers doing anything.
She was always on the water with me.
She was quite normal until she got to 11 years old.
And then we noticed the physical change in her.
She grew a hump on her back and then started to develop
hair all over.
We were having to shave her twice a day if we were going out.
We took her to the doctors.
And I would say within...
..two hours of attending the surgery,
we were in an ambulance under police escort to a
children's hospital in Nottingham.
And she was there 17 weeks.
I was told she'd got the rarest form of cancer there was.
Within ten years of coming back from Christmas Island,
I'd lost half my thyroid, which is one of the glands
susceptible to radiation.
When I got home, my parents said I didn't look well.
A skin rash on my face.
It would bleed.
When they first examined me, the two doctors looking through my notes
said, "Oh, yes, he's been to Christmas Island.
"We better have a good look at him."
And I had cancer on my face and also on my back.
A surgeon operated on me and he said,
"I've never seen anything like it."
He described it as like a bunch of berries,
but it was swelling as big as a melon, really.
As big as a melon, I could rest my elbow on it.
I had colon cancer.
I was in hospital for three months.
I had the surgery, having my colon chopped about.
Only got a third of me colon left.
The rest was thrown in the bin.
You know, years down the line, all the evidence and everything else,
now we realise that we weren't taken care of.
I put it all together, you know,
and when you think, "Well, I can't go wrong.
"If I go with all this evidence to a tribunal, they should accept
"it's probably all due to the fact I was on Christmas Island."
But no, I was turned down.
I have to prove beyond all reasonable doubt that my injuries
were caused by...
..radiation, but I couldn't really prove it.
And that was the problem.
It was worse than negligence.
They knew full well what they were doing.
They sent us to that island to suffer the effects.
Someone in the MoD declassified certain documents,
through ignorance, I would imagine.
But in this document, it's all quite detailed
and it's from May 20th, 1953.
And it's to the Chiefs of Staff Committee. It says quite clearly
that the Army must discover the detailed effects of various types
of explosion on equipment, stores and men,
both with and without various types of protection.
Now, whatever protection that means, I don't know.
There was no protection as far as we were concerned.
So we were the guinea pigs.
Nobody understands our story.
Even in our own country, people haven't a clue as to what we did.
I did a full 22 years in the Army.
And when I left, I put it in a box and put the lid on.
You've got to.
Time went on and I found out that I couldn't have children.
Maybe it was just as well we didn't have any children.
I'm very sorry to say that, but that's the case because I do know...
..of some people who've had very difficult problems
with their children.
Jill, she never complained.
We never saw her cry.
She just took everything in her stride.
I think it was within five days they operated on her.
And the wound that they clipped together ran right the way
round the body from one side of her spine to the other.
I sometimes slept down on the floor beside her, just to be with her...
..and talk to her when she woke up.
They used to take her away every day for about two hours
and they wouldn't let us come with them.
And I said to Jill,
"What are they doing when you go away?
"Are you getting treatment?"
She said, "No, Dad, it's a lot of rooms,
"a lot of people talking, and they photograph me.
"They take all my clothes off and photograph me."
I did approach the doctor.
He said, "Well, there's nothing in the annals of medical history
"regarding this disease." He said, "We've got to look at it."
And I took that as a reasonable answer.
She came home later on in that year to have Christmas at home.
But, sadly enough, she just left us.
She was in my arms when she died.
Looking back over the way she was treated...
..there were areas of time that she was not a patient,
she was an object to be studied.
Jill used to love music.
And there was one song we always sang for her,
and that was Blue Eyes Crying In The Rain.
That was one of her favourite songs.
Yeah.
# In the twilight glow I see her
# Blue eyes cryin' in the rain
# And when we kissed goodbye and parted
# I knew I'd never meet again
WILLIE NELSON: # Love is like a dyin' ember
# Only memories remain
# Through the ages I'll remember
# Blue eyes cryin' in the rain
# Some day when we meet up yonder
# Blue eyes cryin' in the rain. #