Between Heaven and Hell

by Alan Rimmer

  Stott, who had edited three national newspapers during a distinguished career, had always been a supporter of the nuclear veterans and had used his newspapers to campaign on their behalf. One of his particular bailiwicks was the fate the children of the veterans, something that tended to be ignored by the rest of the media.

  A campaign by one of Stott’s newspapers back in the 1980s had uncovered the scandal of the “Atom Bomb Kids” which identified hundreds of children as being affected by their father’s participation in the atomic bomb tests. Stott now wanted to find out if the “curse of the atom bomb” had reached across to the next generation.

  Reporters launched a new investigation. Newspaper files and other research materials stretching back 20 years eventually identified 350 families of nuclear veterans who had complained about health problems in their children.

  What was the fate of the grandchildren? Letters were sent; phone calls were made; reporters knocked on doors. The results were astonishing: 115 families of nuclear veterans were identified who had health problems in 169 of their grandchildren.

  Their testimonies were shocking. Sicknesses such as leukaemia and other cancers were way above average; deformities, miscarriages, stillbirths and congenital illnesses were rife. Skin disease, eye problems, deafness and mental health issues were commonplace. It was as though the gene pool of entire generations had been contaminated.

  Statistician John Urquhart, a government adviser on radiation issues, was asked to analyse the figures.

  He calculated the leukaemia rates in the grandchildren were six times the national average. The number born with deformities and other crippling diseases were ten times the norm, and the figure for Down’s syndrome was seven times more than expected.

  Seemingly, something terrible was happening in the families of nuclear veterans. A new pandemic was at work: a sick family syndrome threatening untold generations with disease and early death.

  Prof Joseph Rotblat was among the first to comment: “This confirms our worse fears about what can happen if the DNA is damaged by radiation. These figures are extremely alarming. They should be published and discussed.”

  Richard Stott excoriated the Government in an article in the mass circulation Daily Mirror newspaper: “How many more generations of the damned will our politicians allow to suffer before they accept the calamities of their predecessors and the consequences of their own cowardice?” he thundered. “In a very few years there will be no nuclear test veterans left, old soldiers are fading away fast now.”

  There was an outcry. MPs tabled Parliamentary questions. A Commons motion demanding compensation for the victims and a thorough study of the new evidence was backed by 80 MPs.

  Norwich Labour MP Dr Ian Gibson won the backing of MPs for an emergency Commons debate. He told the House: “For many, many years I have known of the hazards of radiation. I have met many people who were involved in the nuclear tests. I can see that they and their families are suffering from exactly the same long-term effects, in some cases lethal. From my knowledge of the atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, there is a direct similarity in terms of genetic effects across generations. The problem is that the Government refuses to see what I regard as the clearest evidence.”

  Veterans from all over the country converged on Parliament to listen to the emergency debate. Ken McGinley was persuaded to come out of retirement to add his weight, and was treated like a hero.

  Hundreds stood outside waving placards. They had arrived in buses, cars, invalid carriages and even motor-cycle sidecar. They came on foot, on crutches and in wheelchairs. Many would have crawled there if no other transport had been available.

  In the crowd was Shirley Denson whose RAF husband Eric died so tragically and Archie Ross with daughter Julie.

  Since her experience in the pensions court, Mrs Denson had become one of the MoD‘s most implacable opponents. With her long hair flowing behind her, she had morphed into a Boadicea figure moving determinedly through the throng, chivvying the huddled pensioners and keeping up spirits.

  At a noisy rally in a Commons committee room, Richard Stott and Dr Gibson, sharing a platform with John Urquhart and internationally-renowned nuclear expert John Large, gave rousing speeches and were rapturously cheered.

  During the emergency debate that followed, defence minister for veteran’s affairs Dr Lewis Moonie floundered during intense questioning from MPs. In a bad-tempered debate he promised the latest evidence would be sent to “experts” for review.

  The veterans were in ebullient mood. They believed they had the Government on the run. Many thought it was only a matter of time before victory was theirs. Dr Gibson said he had the ear of Tony Blair and was trying to arrange a meeting to discuss compensation. Was the long fight over at last?

  Unfortunately the Ministry of Defence didn’t see it that way. After sitting on the dossier for several weeks, Mr Moonie replied. In a lengthy statement, he predictably questioned the scientific basis of the study, and produced a blizzard of statistics.

  He wrote: “I have to say that our considered view is that the scientific basis of the study is highly questionable…the study is based on 350 families of British nuclear test veterans. It has to be said that the 350 families form a small sample group, given that there were in the region of 20,000 test veterans. Based on the average family size in the UK in the intervening years, it could be assumed that test veterans would have had about 50,000 children who would subsequently parent around 100,000 grandchildren…”

  Mr Moonie continued in a similar vein for six pages, before finishing: “I do not believe that the information presented in the dossier provides evidence that would lead us to review our policies on war pensions.”

  In the wake of this, Tony Blair pulled out of planned discussions. It was another crushing blow for the veterans, and there were howls of protest from all sides of the political divide.

  Labour MP Dr Ian Gibson joined forces with Tory MP John Baron and forced a parliamentary debate. Representatives from the National Radiological Protection Board, now calling itself the Health Protection Agency, agreed to attend the meeting.

  But the new organisation, under the thumb of the Ministry of Defence, was as intractable as the old. The same old arguments where wheeled out: no evidence of radiation exposure; statistical studies found no discernable difference in the health of test participants; the men were never in any danger…

  The press lost interest, the MPs ran out of words and the initiative once again slipped away from the veterans.

  Somehow the campaign staggered on, kept alive by Shirley Denson and Dennis Hayden, a veteran of the Australian bomb tests, and a few other stalwarts who formed a breakaway group which fought increasingly fruitless skirmishes with the Ministry of Defence.

  They were derided as “Sunday afternoon revolutionaries” in some quarters for their zeal in trying to keep the campaign in the news agenda, but they ignored the jibes and carried on regardless.

  Meanwhile the suffering of the innocents continued unabated. As the politicians argued, a tiny baby boy was being laid to rest in a corner of windswept country graveyard in Swansea.

  Around the small white casket were his mother, grandmother and great-grandmother. The infant was called Joshua and he never had a chance to see the world: he was still-born at 25 weeks, a tragic signal that the genetic scourge had jumped to the fourth generation of British servicemen who took part nuclear bomb tests 50 years earlier.

  Joshua’s family decided to bury him next to his great-grandfather John Condon, an RAF serviceman who died of leukaemia, aged just 24.

  Mr Condon died of leukaemia two years after he worked on the Valiant and Canberra bombers used in the H-bomb tests at Christmas Island. He was stationed at Burtronwood, the giant bomber base near Liverpool, as the bombers returned “red-hot” to the UK, and it was his job to strip down the highly-radioactive engines.

  Very soon he fell ill, and was diagnosed with the incurable blood disease. His widow Margare
t was left to bring up their one-yr-old daughter Diane alone.

  Seven years after her husband died, Margaret was also diagnosed with leukaemia. Astonishingly it was the same rare form of the disease that had killed her husband. It was only when she made enquiries at the hospital that treated him that she learned his illness may have been linked to radiation exposure.

  But she was still at a complete loss to understand how she could have contracted the same disease until told she may have been contaminated by washing her husband’s overalls which he brought home after work.

  Mrs Condon wrote to the Ministry of Defence, and was reassured that her husband had never been contaminated, and it followed, therefore, that she could not have been affected.

  But tragedy struck again when their daughter Diane developed a cancerous tumour and her unborn baby was aborted. She was given chemotherapy treatment and appeared to have beaten the cancer, but miscarried twice more before giving birth to a healthy daughter, Rebecca.

  The family were relieved that Rebecca was fit and well, until she became pregnant at 18. At about 23 weeks she went to the doctor because she was concerned about not being able to feel her unborn baby moving. Tests revealed the devastating reason: the baby was dead.

  A reason was never given for the child’s death, but the family believe they know. Rebecca’s mum Diane, has no doubts: “We all know the reason. There was never any illness in the family before my dad contracted leukaemia. But now it is just one thing after another. It just seems to go on and on.”

  It is of course impossible to establish whether there is a connection with Mr Condon’s exposure to radiation and the tragic series of illnesses in his family. But the Condon case is by no means unique. Evidence of trans-generational genetic disorders pepper the files of the nuclear tests veterans association.

  A prime example of a “nuclear family” is that of Archie Ross. Since returning from Christmas Island he has suffered cataracts which doctors confirmed were almost certainly caused by ionising radiation.

  As we have seen, soon after he returned to the UK, his wife gave birth to Julie who had a range of physical disabilities that persist to this day. But Mr Ross also had another daughter, Tracy, who was born perfect.

  The family was again thrown into turmoil when Tracy married and gave birth to a Down’s syndrome baby, Jacob. The odds against these events occurring naturally are incalculable. But no official study has ever been proposed to investigate this dreadful phenomenon.

  MARK OF THE BOMB

  In 2006 the veteran’s campaign was given an unexpected boost from the other side of the world. Seemingly out of the blue, a new scientific technique established that exposure to A-bombs could leave a fingerprint in the DNA of the victim.

  New Zealand servicemen who witnessed the Grapple series of tests at Christmas Island had without fanfare commissioned a study by Professor Al Rowland of Massey University to examine this novel concept.

  They asked him to investigate if sailors, on board two ships that steamed through fallout zones, had suffered genetic damage. Rowland said that after the passing of 50 years he wasn’t sure there would be anything to find. But after meeting the NZ veteran’s charismatic chairman Roy Sefton, he said he would give it a go.

  Rowland concentrated on new scientific tests which looked at translocations, the exchange of genetic material, between different chromosomes. Translocations show evidence of genetic damage and are therefore important indicators of cancers and other illnesses.

  Under strict scientific disciplines, blood was taken from 50 of the NZ nuclear veterans for comparison with 50 servicemen who had not been at the tests.

  The study identified crucial differences: the veterans had far more cancers and skin problems. And the level of translocations in veterans was three times higher than in the control group.

  When the results were published they couldn’t be faulted. The study was successfully peer reviewed by respected scientific journals. Rowland was unequivocal: this was proof that servicemen had been exposed to radiation from the Grapple bomb tests.

  The news was a huge boost to the flagging fortunes of the British veterans, especially when even the MoD was forced to admit it couldn’t fault the procedures used by Rowland.

  The breakthrough was a remarkable testament to the tenacity of Roy Sefton who set about gaining support for the study after he became ill.

  He was just 17 when he was sent to the Pacific aboard the frigate Pukaki which, together with its sister ship Rotoiti, was to monitor British H-bomb tests for the New Zealand government.

  By the time he was 30, Mr Sefton could hardly walk and his joints ached that much there were times he couldn’t touch anything without feeling pain. But he soon discovered he wasn’t alone.

  At least six of his shipmates died in their 20s, from cancers associated with radiation poisoning. Professor Neil Pearce, a distinguished epidemiologist analysed the health records of the New Zealand veterans and found a small, but significant increase, in death rates. He also discovered the men died from cancers typically associated with radiation.

  During the Grapple Tests Pukaki spent months patrolling the seas around Christmas Island. Because fresh water was so scarce, the crews often bathed in rainwater as they chased the rain-storms following the explosions. And they ate locally-caught fish and produce from nearby islands.

  Mr Sefton was convinced the crews’ health problems were caused by fallout. But the British government denied there was any link with the tests. Sefton, observing how the British veterans were getting nowhere with their claims, decided the New Zealand veterans would go it alone.

  They raised the $250,000 needed to carry out the complicated and costly genetic tests on the veterans. But even then Professor Rowland was sceptical: “I had my doubts that we could find out anything about something that occurred 50 years ago. But the alternative was to do nothing and I felt that if we lived in a responsible society we at least should give it a try.”

  Professor Rowland had access to a new technique that had been used on Chernobyl victims and nuclear workers, but never before on nuclear veterans. Rowland started selecting 50 veterans of the nuclear bomb tests and 50 controls, matched perfectly for age, lifestyle and even drinking and smoking habits. It was a painstaking task that took many years.

  The results were astonishing: signs of damage in the chromosomes, the structure that contains the DNA, in the nuclear veterans, was so marked that Professor Rowland had no hesitation in signifying that this was caused by radiation. Each pair of chromosome has its own colour. A colour switch would mean a sign of genetic damage known as a chromosomal translocation. The more translocations you have, the greater the risk of developing cancers.

  Professor Rowland found the translocations in the nuclear veterans were three times the number of translocations in the controls. The results were higher than the Chernobyl victims, in fact they were the highest Rowland had ever seen.

  His conclusion: “Our view is that this was caused by radiation because the frequency is so high and we have taken into account every other known confounding factor. We are left with only one option: this group was damaged because the men took part in Operation Grapple.”

  While the British government digested this unwelcome news, the rest of the world bowed to the inevitable.

  The nuclear nations, including, America, Russia, France and China announced they would pay compensation to their nuclear veterans. Even the Manx government, the Tynwald, agreed to pay 12 veterans living on the island £8,000 each for the physical and mental anguish they had suffered through their participation in the bomb tests.

  Britain now stood uniquely alone in its stubborn refusal to acknowledge the veteran’s claims. Rather than concede defeat, it dismissed the evidence of the Rowland study as “too small”.

  But the Rowland evidence could not be discarded so lightly, and a high-powered firm of London solicitors decided to mount a legal challenge.

  In the past the Ministry of Defence had blocked
legal moves against it by saying any action would be time-barred because the bomb tests occurred outside the legal time limit. Rosenblatt solicitors decided to challenge this in the courts. If successful, it would open the way for a multi-million pound compensation claim by the veterans.

  It was a high-risk strategy and the firm stood to lose millions, but it pressed on nevertheless and 1,010 veterans were chosen to fight the case in the High Court, with nine ‘lead’ cases as the stalking horses. And they believed there was really only one man capable of leading the fight. It was the man who started it all, and he was the only one who could finish it.

  Ken McGinley prepared for the showdown like a veteran gunslinger. His clothes were laid neatly out on the bed in his hotel room two miles from the Royal Courts of Justice: grey slacks, with a cheese-cutter crease; crisp, blue cotton shirt; shoes shined and buffed so you could see your face in them. Tie: blue and red diagonal striped, and a dark blue blazer fresh from the dry-cleaners. On both his tie and blazer was a badge topped by a crown. On the bottom were the words: All We Seek is Justice. In the middle, the mushroom cloud of an atomic explosion in full deadly bloom.

  He dressed with care, brushed his hair and regarded himself in the mirror. Satisfied, he took the lift and walked across the foyer of the hotel and out of the doors. A taxi pulled up immediately: “The High Court,” he instructed and settled back in his seat.

  After a three week trial, Judge Mr Justice Foskett stunned the Ministry of Defence by casting aside the time-barred ruling, opening the way for massive compensation claims by the veterans.

  There were wild scenes of jubilation outside the court. And it was a personal triumph for Ken McGinley who armed with just the contents of his brain and a photographic memory easily saw off the best efforts of the Ministry of Defence with all its vast legal clout and inside knowledge.

  The hugely expensive barristers had him in the witness box for two days, but hardly landed a single blow. McGinley, adroit as ever, even had the judge smiling as he explained with characteristic Celtic bluntness his role in the 30-year battle: “I saw it as my job to speak on behalf of all the veterans; to put my head above the parapet; to get as much publicity as I could for the cause. Today, you call it ‘spin’, but to me it was nothing but the unvarnished truth.”