Britain’s Nuclear Bomb Scandal: Our Story
This documentary is the end product of a lot of hard work, long hours and a lot of dedication by a dedicated group of people. My involvement started after I was contacted by fellow descendant Steve Purse who had met with a producer named Simon Rawles who wanted to make a taster tape to see if anyone would commission the documentary. Steve, his mum Jacqui and I travelled to Worcester and told our stories, which is never easy.
Simon worked his magic and a commission was given by the BBC to Simon and Hardcash productions. Contractual negotiations started and Susie Boniface became the Special Advisor for the documentary. This was not an easy process, contracts are hard to negotiate, but with determination and a group effort, they were agreed and the production started. I am a tough negotiator, but the group stood with me which meant we had a powerful voice.
A tough deadline was set, November 2024, the contract negotiations had overrun and Simon was up against it. He had to perform many interviews, both in the UK and Australia and try to fit 72 years of injustice into 60 minutes. It is impossible, we would need many many episodes and many series to tell the full story.
The commissioning editor at the BBC fought for longer and the documentary was extended to 75 minutes to accommodate material that just could not end up on the cutting room floor. The team at Hardcash worked hard to meet the deadline and a special preview was setup for the 8th of November at Selfridges for the press and contributors to see the full documentary to prepare articles and publicity for the transmission on the 20th. This was all embargoed until the 12th of November.
I watched via a remote link from home due to being unable to attend in person, but Susan Mussselwhite represented LABRATS. The film is emotional, it is powerful, but the LABRATS Directors and myself were not happy with some parts of the documentary.
Further discussions were undertaken to include as many people from our community as possible. The BBC always has editorial control, but they listened to us. Hardcash only have 75 minutes, it is difficult to portray the story but they have managed to capture the emotions of the veterans and the descendants and through discussion facilitated by Laura Morris, we came to an agreement.
I will be honest with you all, this week has been one of the most stressful of my entire career, coming of the back of Remembrance and with a recent bereavement in the family and both myself and my wife were ill. We needed it to be correct and to be fully inclusive and I was not prepared to back down.
Unfortunately, this has led to some horrible, abusive messages from within the community, ones which I never though I would receive, but the LABRATS Directors continued with the discussions, this despite one Director attending an hospital appointment for painful treatment only hours before the main meeting.
I would like to thank those who have supported me this week especially my wife, my sister, Susan Musselwhite, Laura Morris, John Morris and Steve Purse. It has been incredibly difficult but we knew that the end product would be enhanced with our input. Hardcash and the BBC should also be thanked for their continued support of the documentary and their understanding of how powerful this documentary is for the community.
THE DOCUMENTARY
The documentary covers the UK testing program from 1952 to 1963, with the first hand testimonies of veterans Brian Unthank, John Folkes, Terry Quinlan, John Morris, Archie Hart and Avon Hudson.
Descendants Karina Lester, Steve Purse and myself talk about our experiences and the loss of our fathers and how it has affected us.
Professor Kevin Ruane, Professor Elizabeth Tynan and Professor Tim Mousseau provide their expert knowledge.
Journalists Colin James and Susie Boniface describe how they have reported on the injustice and Susie describes the current legal action and how the UK veterans and their families are still fighting for justice.
The programme includes the story of the ‘Woomera babies’. For the first time on British television, it is revealed how the tests are believed to have impacted the small town of Woomera in South Australia, which was a military base situated around 600 kilometres from nuclear detonations.
THE CONTRIBUTERS
All Images: BBC/Hardcash Productions/Simon Rawles
Brian Unthank, 86 Kent
RAF cook Brian Unthank was delighted to be told he was going to Christmas Island, a tropical paradise where he regularly caught sharks on the reef and cooked for the whole camp to enjoy.
Brian witnessed two hydrogen bombs with a combined yield equivalent to 320 Hiroshima bombs, before he returned home to a lifetime of horrifying consequences.
A few months later, blood began gushing from Brian’s mouth. Within weeks he had lost all of his teeth. Brian began suffering gut problems and his wife suffered 13 late-term miscarriages. Of their surviving children, one was born with two holes in his heart, and a daughter with two wombs. Brian has had 93 skin cancers removed but they are counted, in the official government studies, as just one case of cancer.
Brian’s official medical records are missing 20 years of annual medical checks covering the period of his family’s ill health.
John Folkes, 89 Kent
For the first time on television, John Folkes talks about how aged 19, he was ordered to fly through the mushroom clouds of four atomic bombs.
John was not supposed to, being ground crew, but was needed to operate an internal switch opening flaps to take samples for scientists as the plane entered the cloud. John was also told to enter the smoking crater to take further samples.
John’s blood was tested throughout to see if radiation entered his body but he has never been told the results. Left with PTSD and permanent trembling, John’s medical file has been stripped of all records from the same period.
“We saw this inferno, crimson, black smoke billowing up towards us… The cloud was rising. It was coming up at an alarming rate. I didn't think we were gonna make it. I felt so vulnerable. How we got so close and not vaporised I just don't know. This enormous shockwave flipped the aircraft over. We were more or less upside down, but climbing, fortunately away from the bomb. The shock wave undoubtedly saved our lives. Whether it was the intensity of that noise that shook or the electromagnetic pulse… my hands have shaken ever since”.
Terry Quinlan, 84 Kent
Former Army driver Terry Quinlan’s photo album shows a young man wearing shorts, posing proudly with his truck and friends. But when the weapons were detonated on Christmas Island there was no bravado.
“There was fear. I was frightened. They were all kids. Couple of friends of mine were wetting themselves.”
Terry experienced night terrors and upon being admitted to the island hospital, he had repeated urine tests checking for ingested radiation. These results cannot be found in Terry’s medical records.
Terry has severe heart problems and finally won a war pension last year but only after his surgeon found a lump of shrapnel lodged in his chest from one of the bombs. Terry joined Brian Unthank to serve the veterans’ new legal claim on the government, wearing the same protection he had at Operation Grapple – a shirt, shorts and a bush hat.
Steve Purse, 51 Prestatyn, Wales
The son of veteran David Purse, who took part in radioactive experiments known as ‘the Minor Trials’ in Maralinga in 1963, Steve was born with a number of severe disabilities including a form of short stature.
Steve’s father would describe how contaminated sand would blow around the camp in the days after the tests. Steve always said he wouldn’t have children, so as not to pass on the genetic damage he believed he suffered as a result of his father’s service but after meeting and marrying Gina, he has a three year old son.
“He didn't escape, though. He has a genetic condition which means his teeth are crumbling. It's quite a rare condition but again fits well with our community. All the conditions are unique like mine or rare. The hope is that that's all he'll get. The worry is some of these problems come out in adolescence. That’s the nature of what we deal with, with these invisible bullets that keep being fired."
John Morris, 86 Rochdale, Lancashire
John’s nightmare began on February 15, 1962, when he awoke to the sound of his wife’s screams and their four month old son Steven lifeless in his cot.
John and Betty were questioned on suspicion of his murder before a pathologist ruled Steven had died from bronchopneumonia - a condition he showed no symptoms of. The coroner’s report suggested his son’s lungs may not have formed properly. The deeply traumatised couple could not bear to leave their later children unattended.
As John’s granddaughter Laura prepares to have a baby of her own, John is terrified for the well-being of the new baby. Diagnosed with pernicious anaemia at the age of 26, John has been refused a war pension even though the condition is common in radiotherapy patients. John remembers five blood tests, but all are missing from his medical records.
Archie Hart, 87 Warrington, Cheshire
Archie Hart, speaks for the first time on television about his experience as part of the crew of HMS Diana, the MoD’s designated ‘guinea pig’ ship which in 1956 was ordered to sail through the fallout of two atomic clouds for eight hours at a time.
The vessel was part of an MoD experiment to test the effects of an atomic explosion on the ship and its 280 crew.
“They would have us believe that this nuclear fallout was just a gentle rain from heaven... It wasn't. It was toxic and it was deadly.
It was ionising radiation. Everybody on that ship were used. You weren't given a choice in this. And if that's not being used, tell me what is.”
Archie speaks about the physical toll on his body and shows his many lipomas in the documentary. He has around 150 on his body. In his 60’s Archie had a large chunk of his bowel removed after an aggressive cancer.
Alan Owen, 53 Carmarthen, Wales
Alan Owen is the son of James Owen, who served on Christmas Island as part of a series of US tests codenamed Operation Dominic. Alan’s father died of a heart attack aged 52.
Eighteen months later, Alan’s brother, aged 31, died of the same heart condition. His sister Laura was born blind in one eye and has had tumours removed from her face. Alan, who founded LABRATS, himself suffered a cardiac arrest two years ago.
“I was gone for eight minutes. Unfortunately my son witnessed the whole thing. He was 15 years old. I worry about my son. I worry about kids that he may have. It’s a theme that runs through all of us. We’re constantly living in the shadow of the bomb.”
Susie Boniface Investigative Journalist - Tonbridge, Kent
Investigative journalist Susie Boniface has reported on the nuclear war veterans for almost 20 years, in what she says has been Britain’s longest-running newspaper campaign.
After helping the veterans win a medal, Susie uncovered missing medical records in 2022. This year (2024) her reporting forced the Atomic Weapons Establishment to publish 4,000 pages of top-secret documents about the medical examinations carried out, including orders for thousands of men across all three armed forces to be included, raw blood test data and evidence of MoD officials misleading government ministers and the public by denying the testing ever took place. It has led to a fresh legal claim which she believes is the veterans’ last hope of justice.
“What they had said all the time, that they were guinea pigs and lab rats - was right. They were experimented on as human beings during the entire course of the nuclear weapons tests.”
Avon Hudson, 86 Ex-Australian Serviceman - Balaklava, South Australia
Avon Hudson is the ex-Australian serviceman turned whistleblower who exposed the extent of contamination left by the British at the Maralinga test sites.
When Avon spoke to the ABC in 1976, he risked years in prison for breaching the Official Secrets Act. Speaking out was a turning point, bringing political attention to the scandal which led to the Australian government granting a Royal Commission in 1984.
Karina Lester Adelaide, South Australia
Karina Lester’s father Yami was the first person to tell the world what happened at Operation Totem, when a bomb led to a toxic black mist which poisoned waterholes.
It left Yami blind and allegedly killed dozens of indigenous Pitjantjatjara and Yankunytjatjara people. Karina continues her father’s mission.
Professor Kevin Ruane Canterbury, Kent
Professor Ruane specialises in twentieth-century international history, in particular the Cold War and the Nuclear Age.
Professor Ruane speaks about how the race to beat a worldwide nuclear test ban led to Britain compromising safety standards in its hydrogen bomb-building programme in Australia and the South Pacific.
“America and Russia had agreed to put an end to atmospheric testing, which would have been disastrous if it happened before the UK had tested its first thermonuclear weapon. They needed to get this weapon tested before that. Those at the top were not too worried about the human cost further down the chain of command. This was a very menacing Cold War environment, which they would have felt, I think, at the time trumped some collateral human damage."
Professor Elizabeth Tynan
Townsville, Australia
Author and historian Professor Elizabeth Tynan is one of the leading contemporary experts on Britain’s nuclear test programme.
A former ABC journalist and correspondent for New Scientist magazine, Professor Tynan has written in devastating detail how Britain’s nuclear test programme in Australia unfolded.
“Australia was left with a toxic physical and political legacy that is ongoing. It is unresolved and it has caused a great deal of harm and a great deal of sorrow to people in this country.”
Professor Tynan adds that the amount of plutonium left behind in Maralinga was, “enough to kill everyone on the planet”.
Colin James
Adelaide, Australia
The story of the Woomera babies, the high number of deaths of at least 68 babies and children in a military desert outpost during the nuclear testing programme has never been told before on television.
Colin James, the former investigative journalist for the Adelaide Advertiser who first broke the Woomera babies story, speaks exclusively about the secrecy surrounding the deaths.
Professor Tim Mousseau
South Carolina, USA
Professor Tim Mousseau is one of the world’s leading experts on the effects of radiation on living organisms and is among the most highly cited scientists in this field.
Since 2000, Professor Mousseau has conducted groundbreaking research on the effects of ionizing radiation on organisms living in Chernobyl, Fukushima and other radioactive regions of the world. Professor Mousseau has edited or co-authored 13 books and 230+ scientific papers, with more than 110 papers related to Chernobyl or Fukushima studies. He is an internationally recognised authority concerning the effects of radiation on natural systems.
“One of the most important lessons we've learned from this era of atomic bomb testing is that for the men involved in the tests there is no safe distance from an atomic explosion. A question that comes up is how much did we know when these tests were being conducted and the answer is we knew enough, we knew enough to know that this was dangerous.”
CONCLUSION
So much hard work has gone into the production of this documentary, there are too many people to list individually. I urge you all to watch it on the 20th of November at 9pm UK Time or via the BBC iPlayer when it becomes available.
Simon Rawles and the team at Hardcash have produced an exceptional documentary within their 75 minute timeframe. The BBC have extended the timeframe to ensure our story is told, both have been very respectful to the communities they are representing.
Not everyone has been included, we would need hundreds if not thousands of hours to tell the complete story. There have been arguments and disagreements, lots of discussions and many sleepless nights, but it is worth it as you will see.
For everyone who contributed in any way, thank you for the support.
Join Susan Musselwhite, Steve Purse and me live on Facebook and Twitter straight after the broadcast where we will be discussing the documentary, answering questions and providing support.
PLEASE DO NOT MISS IT!
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