McGinley travelled to see the man, but in the absence of on-the-record evidence from the clerk there was little that could be done. The inquest duly found no evidence to link the sailor’s death with his involvement in nuclear bomb tests.
This odd story might well have been dismissed as the paranoid ramblings of a man literally caught with his trousers down, but for a startling coincidence involving the same Treasury solicitor.
Again it involved an inquest, this time into the death of Harold Graham Dovey, a former AWRE technician who had witnessed several atomic explosions in Australia.
Mr Dovey had died of rare form of cancer, multiple myeloma, which has been linked with radiation exposure. As in the previous case, the coroner’s clerk was a local police constable who had been asked to investigate the circumstances surrounding Mr Dovey’s death.
The man from the Reading Police force confirmed he, too, had been taken off the case by the same Treasury solicitor.
He made the following statement: “I was making routine inquiries at the Department of Health and Reading Area Health Authority when I received a phone call from the office of the Treasury Solicitor.
This man asked me, in a not too friendly way, why I was making inquiries into the Dovey case when he, the Treasury Solicitor, had all the relevant information. I told him it was my job to do so. He replied that it was no longer my job and he effectively sacked me from the inquiry.
I protested, but it was made known to me in no uncertain terms as to my future job prospects if I attempted to interfere. Obviously I cannot say too much about my personal feelings in this matter. Suffice it to say, I thought it was wrong.”
Both statements were later given in confidence to Liberal MP David Alton who demanded the Attorney General Sir Michael Havers, and the Lord Chancellor, Lord Hailsham, investigate the claims. He said: “There is something very sinister about this affair. It is scandalous that police officers carrying out their normal duties can be intimidated in this way.”
Despite the protests, no inquiry was ever made into these matters. The Dovey inquest went ahead, but this time the jury returned an open verdict which was hailed as a victory for the veterans.
And what happened to the Treasury solicitor? Within weeks he was shunted aside and was last heard of working for the criminal injuries compensation board.
The implications of these disquieting events were not lost on McGinley. He was beginning to realise that ‘dirty tricks’ had been the stock in trade of successive governments ever since the bomb tests had taken place. Witness statements and first-hand testimony from nuclear veterans and civilian workers suggested something very sinister was taking place, but it was difficult to prove a widespread conspiracy.
Despite the setbacks, progress was being made by the veterans and although the ‘smoking gun’ that would prove their case was still elusive, even the most diehard cynics could hardly doubt the link between ill-health and the atom tests.
Bowing to pressure, the government began to quietly introduce rule changes to award war pensions to veterans who had certain types of cancers. And there were plans to draw up a Green Paper that would have compensated the veterans through the social security system, without embarrassing the government too much. It was a solution of sorts, and something that McGinley and the veterans would have accepted.
But an unexpected development sent the campaign off in an entirely new and unexpected direction: a veterans’ meeting in Newscastle was gate-crashed by a tall, raw-boned Scot who, without preamble, threw a black and white photograph on the table in front of Mr McGinley: “That’s what you should be looking at,” the man said before disappearing into the night.
McGinley and the rest of those present examined the photo. It was of a little boy, in a white shirt, bow tie and grey shorts, sitting on a tricycle. The lad had no hands or feet and his large, luminous eyes stared out from a grossly-misshapen head. It was a pitiful picture and everyone was struck by the eyes that conveyed a mute appeal.
A search party was sent out to look for the mysterious stranger, but he was nowhere to be found. It was some weeks before they finally tracked him down. His name was Murdo MacLeod, a crofter from Lewis, the largest of the Hebridean islands off the far northwest coast of Scotland.
Thirty years earlier he had been a civilian truck driver and adventurer who managed to get himself attached to the British Army in the Maralinga proving grounds where he witnessed several nuclear bomb tests.
During his year-long tenure, he became William Penney’s personal driver and often took the scientist out to the test sites. When it was all over he returned to Scotland where his son John Alexander was born. It was John’s face that stared out of the picture. The face opened up a disturbing new chapter in the campaign.
MURDO’S STORY
Able Seaman Murdo MacLeod decided to jump ship at Fremantle, 20 miles along the coast from Perth in Western Australia. He and his buddy Wally McIver had had enough of the old MV Thuyssen. She was a rust-bucket of uncertain parentage which had somehow survived the war and now she shipped coal and scrap metal. They didn’t like the captain, a mad Dutchman, so decided to strike out on their own.
They’d heard of big gold strikes in the Outback, and wanted some of the action. They were young and it seemed like a good idea at the time.
They picked up rumours of gold prospecting in the north-west territory, but when they headed north they found nothing, and when they went west they found less. After a couple of months their money ran out and decided to try their luck mining for opals mining in south Australia, on the edge of the Great Victoria Desert.
It was at a place called Coober Pedy. Rumour had it there had been some sensational finds. It was just the thing they had been looking for. They acquired a battered old Land Rover and headed for the digs
In 1956 Coober Pedy was like an Australian Klondyke, attracting hordes of adventurers, all scraping the harsh desert surface for the bright blue gemstones reputed to be lying around just waiting to be picked up. It was so hot, its inhabitants had to live like troglodytes underground in man-made holes and trenches; water and other supplies had to be carted in from great distances.
Murdo got a job as a truck driver while Wally dug trenches. It was tough work, but they were both tough men and they decided to get on with things until better days came along.
The best part of Murdo’s job was the weekly run to collect provisions and water from Watson Siding, an isolated railway junction in the middle of the desert about 40 miles west of Coober Pedy. The freight train, when it came, arrived in its own good time, and Murdo often had to wait for hours before it turned up. Murdo soon got to know the local aborigines who regarded the junction as an important meeting place.
He recalled: “It was a place where they rested and held meetings to discuss things. They’d probably been doing it for thousands of years. I think it was a holy place as well. They would often sit on their haunches in circles and sort of chant for hours at a time. As the months went by I became familiar with most of the little tribes that used the spot and even started to pick up some of the lingo. They were nice, dignified people. Simple, I suppose. But noble as well. They were called the Tjarutja and they told me that this was their land, but that I was very welcome to stay.”
One day Murdo arrived at the crossing to find the aborigines in an extremely agitated state. He recalled: “They were all wound up and kept pointing into the desert. Charlie, one of the elders explained that a large party of men, soldiers, had arrived on a train in the early hours of the morning. The whole lot had then taken off into the desert.