Ken McGinley describes wives and children arriving on Christmas Island in 1958 on HMT Dunera. Having paid £25 for the privilege, they were brought over to the atoll with fresh troops to boost morale following the successful detonation of Grapple X. After a week of sightseeing, the 30 wives and 31 children set sail back to the UK with their fathers, who had completed their duration of service. Not long after returning home, the wives and children began to experience ill-health conditions. One mother reported how her six-month old daughter began to lose her hair. The family doctor could not identify the cause.
 
This is a short extract from an in-depth interview. Ken McGinley was recorded for the Oral History of British Nuclear Test Veterans project in 2024. The interviewer was Christopher R. Hill. This project was run in partnership with National Life Stories and the full interview can be accessed at the British Library. This recording is © University of South Wales.

Transcript:
What shocked me more than anything else was, all of a sudden, coming off the landing crafts, were children and women. White women and white children.

Oh, right. Coming on to Christmas Island?

Aye. From the ship, from the Dunera. Yeah. I says, what the hell’s going on here, I thought, what are they doing on the island, you know? These were the men who were on the island who were being relieved, and they were going back on the ship with their wives and children.

Why?

But, who in their right mind would send children and wives to an island that just had detonated a bomb, a hydrogen bomb, Grapple X, in November 1957.

So, when you’re arriving then, these women and children are getting off the boat, this is, how long did it take for the Dunera to get from the UK to Christmas Island?

Round about four weeks.

Right, so you’re there by the end of January, February?

We never saw these women and children because there were different decks, you see?

Yes, and that’s 1958, so only three bombs as part of the test operation, Operation Grapple, had been conducted so far, and that was one, two and three on Malden Island?

Yeah, the three tests that were conducted in Malden Island were allegedly hydrogen bombs, but they were false bombs, they were false, only largely 880,000-ton atomic bombs, you might say. But this was all done with the Americans, you know.

Ken McGinley: Wives and children on HMT Dunera

Gordon Coggon joined the Royal Air Force for his National Service. He worked as an administrative orderly during Operation Grapple in 1958, taking on many different jobs on Christmas Island. Here, he describes some of the hazards involved when fishing for sharks. He was also blinded for two weeks by the second bomb test that he witnessed. Upon returning home, Coggon signed up for a further 22 years in the RAF and worked mainly as a crash rescue fireman.

This is a short extract from an in-depth interview. Gordon Coggon was recorded for the Oral History of British Nuclear Test Veterans project in 2024. The interviewer was Jonathan Hogg. This project was run in partnership with National Life Stories and the full interview can be accessed at the British Library. This recording is © University of South Wales.

Transcript:
Yeah, I went fishing there and I caught a shark, me and my mate, and it pulled me into the coral and cut all my chest, before we managed to land it. But [laughs], I went to sick quarters that night because I’d been lacerated, and I got coral poisoning from it, and while I was in there, they were bringing senior NCOs, the old guys, instructors and whatever they were, from the sergeants’ mess into the sickbays. And they were playing hell, they were going to kill the bloke who took that shark to the sergeants’ mess because they’d eaten it and got food poisoning. They were drinking milk all night.

Gordon Coggon: Catching a shark on Christmas Island

John Morris describes the tragic circumstances in which he and his wife Betty lost their baby son, Steven, and the conflicting statements they received regarding the cause of death. The parents were only granted full access to the autopsy report 50 years later. The report stated that Steven’s lungs had not properly formed. Morris and his family believe that Steven’s death and the deaths of other veterans’ children were linked to their involvement in British nuclear weapons tests. Morris has been a leading figure in LABRATS. In June 2022, he met with Prime Minister Boris Johnson and demanded a medal on behalf of the organisation during its ‘look me in the eye’ campaign.

This is a short extract from an in-depth interview. John Morris was recorded for the Oral History of British Nuclear Test Veterans project in 2024. The interviewer was Jonathan Hogg. This project was in partnership with National Life Stories and the full interview can be accessed at the British Library. This recording is © University of South Wales.

Transcript:
As I said earlier, I did a seminar in Manchester. There were twelve men, and all of us, I’d lost, I lost a son, a cot death. I was arrested, me and my wife were arrested, saying that we’d possibly killed him. We put him to bed at night, we got up in the morning and he were dead in his cot. Got to hospital, the police came and, okay, they’ve got to do that, they’d no option, you know. Then, three days later, they said oh, we’re not pursuing any charges, it’s a cot death. When we got the death certificate it was bronchial pneumonia, so it started murder, then a cot death, then bronchial pneumonia. And it took me fifty years to get an autopsy report. They wouldn’t release the autopsy report. The autopsy report says that his lungs hadn’t formed correctly. Was that part of the atomic bomb? There are hundreds – and researchers can look it up – there are hundreds of us gone the same way. Lost children, had children with huge problems, some a lot worse than me. I had three children after, all of them are okay, apart from my two daughters. My other daughter had two miscarriages, and the last one they said, we would advise you, Kay, not to have any more children. They wouldn’t tell her why, other than the baby wasn’t, it wasn’t growing as it should, but they wouldn’t go into any detail. Now, is that part of the inheritance that we’ve given? That much I don’t know. But again, when you talk to the veterans, there are hundreds of us gone through the same routine.

John Morris: Death of his son as a baby

Jeffrey Liddiatt did his National Service with the RAF at Maralinga in the early 1960s. He contributed to the Minor Trials, which involved various scientific experiments with radioactive materials. While these trials did not involve the detonation of atomic or thermonuclear bombs, they were often just as dangerous and caused more contamination of the Maralinga site than the standard tests. Despite these risks, Liddiatt states that he cannot be sure if his health issues have been connected to his service.

In the clip, he describes what he perceived as the need to make the BNTVA a more respectable, high-profile organisation. He tried different tactics to gain support from the government, in contrast to actions by others within the BNTVA. To this end, he was a leading figure in gaining charitable status for the BNTVA in 2017.

This is a short extract from an in-depth interview. Jeff Liddiatt was recorded for the Oral History of British Nuclear Test Veterans project in 2024. The interviewer was Joshua A Bushen. The project was run in partnership with National Life Stories and the full interview can be accessed at the British Library. This recording is © University of South Wales.

Transcript:
Well, we were talking to John Baron MP.  He came into this because one of his constituents had a son which was very badly affected medically, so John and a Labour colleague – and there again, I can’t remember his name – set up a cross-party investigation which we had in Parliament.  And that was the first chink of real organisation.  And people started taking note of the possibility, not any fact, just the possibility.

At this time though, did you believe that the radiation had caused your health effect, or were you just…

Well, there was the possibility.

But there was never any certainty in your mind?

There is no certainty of any sort.

Jeff Liddiatt: BNTVA tactics

John Simes was posted to Christmas Island as part of Operation Grapple in 1958 and was initially in the Royal Engineers. He then became attached to the Atomic Weapons Research Establishment (AWRE) and visited Ground Zero following the Grapple Z2 detonation. For Simes, as this clip shows, receiving the Nuclear Test Medal is not as important as finding out more information about the levels of radiation he and his fellow servicemen were exposed to. Simes has been a member of both the British Nuclear Test Veterans Association (BNTVA) and LABRATS.

This is a short extract from an in-depth interview. John Simes was recorded for the Oral History of British Nuclear Test Veterans project in 2024. The interviewer was Fiona Bowler. The project was run in partnership with National Life Stories and the full interview can be accessed at the British Library. This recording is © University of South Wales.

Transcript:
I probably wouldn’t have gone for a medal in the first place, but it seemed to be, LABRATS seemed to be obsessed with it. [laughs]

So how did you feel when it arrived?

Well, I just put it over there, it’ll still be in there now. What I would like to know is the truth. The medal doesn’t tell us the truth. The truth has been covered up, in my opinion, and that’s the bit I would love to know. You’ve only got to go, read all this tribunal stuff in it, there’s so many variations on the evidence being given that it’s quite disturbing really. So there we are. 

So in terms of recognition, from the government, you want to know the truth

Well, it would be nice to know the truth. I mean it’s a fact that all these politicians that we’ve got, I mean from way back, they’re all convinced, they stand up and say all the precautions were taken. Well no, they were not taken. I don’t know, I can’t talk about Australia, I don’t know, but I can talk about Christmas Island. Because none of these people that say all these precautions were taken were there. And if you’re involved as I was, going down all over the island, we know.

John Simes: Recognition and finding the truth

John Cherry interviewed by Paul Merchant, Oral Histories of Environmental Collaboration, Track 7. © University of Exeter.

Regenerative farmer John Cherry on the return of farmland birds to ‘no-till’ fields 

Transcript:
I remember coming back from Tony Reynolds’ place so determined that that was it – we went all in, no-till, after visiting that.  And it wasn’t just seeing all his crops look so fantastic.  It was, you know, he’d drive us around and stop at a field and go in and everywhere we went there were skylarks – just would rise up and would be singing and – I can’t hear that pitch unfortunately but I can see their little beaks opening and shutting.  And I said to Tony – because we were experimenting with skylark nesting patches and things; in those days the government was encouraging us to leave, turn the drill off, your seed drill, when you’re planting a field, so you had patches that didn’t have wheat growing or barley or oats or whatever you were planting but just a few weeds and that was considered to be good for skylarks.  And we’d been doing this and getting paid a fiver a patch or whatever it was the government were offering – trying to encourage our skylarks.  And I said to Tony, ‘I can’t believe the number of skylarks; are you putting your skylark nesting patches in?’  And he said, ‘no, no they just like no till farming’.  And I thought, yeah whatever, you know.  And then two years later or whatever when we were, everything was no till you know the sky was full of skylarks and I thought, you know, actually they do, you know.  But I don’t know, I’m still not really sure why;  presumably it’s the more insects, whatever skylarks are eating and the seeds on the ground and they’re less likely to get run over when they’ve made their nest.  But we’ve still got skylarks everywhere and it’s just an utter joy to see them – and meadow pipits and corn buntings and all sorts of things which are you know meant to be practically extinct just thrive on a no-till system. 

Image: Pinecone at RENEW Collaborations Workshop. Credit: Angela Cassidy

John Cherry on the return of farmland birds to ‘no-till’ fields

In his new work, 'Human Rights and Political Wrongs', Sir Noel Malcolm, one of the UK’s leading historians, offers a trenchant critique of the existing system of human rights law and an original theory of the principles that should govern such law. The YTL Centre for Politics, Philosophy and Law hosted Sir Malcolm for a special symposium on his work.

The event was chaired by Professor Gillian Douglas (Executive Dean of The Dickson Poon School of Law) and commentators included Professor Merris Amos (Queen Mary's University), Jessica Simor QC, and Professor John Tasioulas (Director of the YTL Centre for Politics, Philosophy and Law).

Sir Noel Malcolm is Senior Research Fellow at All Souls College, Oxford and a Fellow of the British Academy. His work has ranged widely in European history and intellectual history, with a particular interest in the history of political philosophy. 

The music used in this podcast is called Apollo1 by Olivier Girardot and it is licensed under Creative Commons.

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Human Rights and Political Wrongs

The Dickson Poon School of Law at King's College London is one of the oldest law schools in England and recognised globally as one of the best law schools in the world.* The School was established in 1831 and has played an integral role in the life of King's since the university was formed almost 200 years ago.

Human Rights and Political Wrongs

The Dickson Poon School of Law

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