REVELATIONS
It was 30 years before the burgeoning scandal of the victims of British nuclear bomb testing burst on the public consciousness.
It started with a simple letter to a local newspaper in 1983 from Ken McGinley a former private in the royal engineers who had spent a year on Christmas Island in 1958. McGinley had vivid memories of Grapple Y, but at that time he had no idea of its significance; to him it was just another bomb test.
For a long time he had suffered flashbacks of the time he woke up in his tent to find himself covered in large blisters. Later his stomach ruptured and he coughed up blood for days. He reported to the sick bay and was told he had an ulcer. He was just 20 years old.
McGinley was later discharged from the army and returned home to Johnstone, west of Glasgow. He hailed from a staunchly Catholic working class family and was soon absorbed back into the close-knit community where he grew up. Alice, his childhood sweetheart with whom he had corresponded throughout his tenure on Christmas Island was waiting for him.
They married and the couple looked forward to starting a family. Unfortunately it was not to be. After tests Mr McGinley was told he was impotent. When he asked ‘why?’ a doctor examined his notes and told him cryptically: “You’ll rue the day you ever stepped foot on Christmas Island…” He would not elaborate, and the McGinley’s were too upset for questions.
It was a bitter blow, but the couple settled down to a more or less normal life. McGinley obtained various jobs, mainly as an administrator and book-keeper and the couple saved enough money to open a small guesthouse. It was a good life, living in their little B&B in the picturesque town of Dunoon nestling on the banks of the Clyde, a couple of miles from Holy Loch. At the time Holy Loch was home to a large United States nuclear submarine base. The business prospered, with a large proportion of the guests being US Navy personnel.
The McGinley’s got on well with the Americans, and they were frequently asked to attend dances and other functions at the naval base. They became honorary members of the Sergeants Club, the social hub of the base where the dollar was the currency and US law prevailed.
Ken and Alice, like most Scots, remained close to their family roots and made frequent trips back across the Clyde to Johnstone to catch up with relatives and friends. It was on one of these trips that Ken met the mother of an old school pal who had joined the Army at the same time as him. He was shocked to learn his friend had died.
Cancer had taken him at the age of just 32. She told him her son had also been sent to Christmas Island to witness the bomb tests and came back very sick; he never recovered, she said. The woman went on to tell him there were four or five other young ‘Johnstone boys’ who had returned from Christmas Island with incurable cancers.
McGinley was consumed by curiosity and decided to track the families down. He was shocked by what he discovered: there were at least eight other local lads all sent to Christmas Island at about the same time. Three had died, while the others were suffering chronic illnesses.
Thoroughly intrigued, McGinley contacted the letters page of Daily Record newspaper asking anyone who had been to Christmas Island at the time of the bomb tests to contact him. A sharp-eyed news editor recognised a potential scoop and dispatched a reporter to interview him.
The subsequent story, spread over two pages of the newspaper, caused a sensation. Scores of men from Scotland contacted the newspaper complaining of cancers and other illnesses. They had all been out to the Pacific and witnessed nuclear bomb testing.
The story was picked up by newspapers and TV stations in the rest of the UK, and it was soon apparent that a hornet’s nest had been kicked over. The wires and the ether buzzed with hundreds, then thousands of complaints from every corner of the UK.
Over and over again the story was told: the men recalled how they had been lined up with nothing but shorts, sandals and coconut palms for protection, while gigantic bombs were exploded scarce miles away. They talked of an intense light in which they could see the bones of their fingers through clenched fists; they told of an unbearable heat, huge blast waves and towering mushroom clouds.
And then, of course, there were the health consequences. The sheer numbers of ex-servicemen now complaining of illness was translated into a wave of protest which swept the country finally, washing up in Whitehall and Downing Street. The Thatcher Government had to do something to stem the flow.
Ministry of Defence mandarins stalled for time and commissioned the National Radiological Protection Board, a quasi-official nuclear watchdog agency, to look into the men’s claims. Sir Richard Doll, an eminent epidemiologist, was chosen to head the study team. The research would take two years, he said, adding that everyone should just calm down and wait for the results.
McGinley wasn’t about to wait two years or even a single day. He was a man in a hurry, and with a mission. By now, the quiet book-keeper had morphed into a full-blown, anti-nuclear campaigner, becoming something of an international celebrity into the bargain.
He was a media ‘natural’, quick-witted and always ready with a newsworthy quote. McGinley found he was in demand from TV stations, newspapers and other media outlets from all over the world. Greenpeace, the international environment group, recognised his propaganda value and whisked him off on a whistle-stop tour of the United States.
These were heady and exciting days for McGinley, and he embraced his destiny with all the fervour of the true convert.
In the New Mexico desert, at the site of the world’s first atomic bomb blast, he defied a phalanx of armed soldiers guarding the Trinity site at Alamogordo as he railed against nuclear imperialism. On the Yucca Flats and in the Utah desert, (accompanied by an ever-growing media pack) he spoke with the ‘Down-winders’, a vociferous community of farming folk who believed they were cursed by radiation from the hundreds of atomic bomb tests the US carried out a few miles from their homes.
He later met with Loretta King, the outspoken widow of the peace campaigner Martin Luther King, and even had a meeting with John Wayne’s widow Pilar who was convinced the great screen cowboy had died as a result of making the movie, The Conqueror, on location in Nevada, downwind from the bomb tests in 1956.
McGinley rounded off his triumphal six-week tour with a peace rally near the Lincoln Memorial and a personal meeting in Washington with Senator Edward Kennedy, and other members of the famous political dynasty.
Returning home he threw himself into a whirlwind round of meetings with MPs, doctors, peace campaigners and various anti-nuclear groups as he pushed the profile of his army of nuclear veterans ever higher up the political agenda. As the pressure mounted, the opposition Labour Party seized the initiative and launched a spirited attack on the Government in the House of Commons. A Private Members Bill brought by a North East MP called Bob Clay, gained support from both Tory and Labour members and looked set to hand a famous victory to McGinley and his veterans.
But the hand of the all-powerful Ministry of Defence reached into the political bear pit and activated a caucus of Tory MPs with historical links to the armed forces. Amid a cacophony of protest from the Labour benches, several MPs took turns to pour scorn on the proposed Bill.
They said all the evidence showed that no serviceman had been harmed at the bomb tests. They conjured every conceivable excuse. Each point was talked about in minute detail in a classic filibuster manoeuvre; the debate descended into farce. Despite outraged protests the Speaker announced he had no option but to call ‘time out’ and the Bill failed.