Test veterans and nuclear justice

Ken McGinley discusses the public impact of his article in the Daily Record, which led to further local, national and international news coverage on the ill-health of British nuclear test veterans. Ultimately, this publicity created the conditions in which a national organisation could be formed. McGinley reflects on his role in the founding and naming of this organisation, which became known as the British Nuclear Test Veterans Association (BNTVA). McGinley became the first chair of the BNTVA in 1983, a post he held for over 15 years. He was prolific in collating evidence about British nuclear test veterans’ health conditions and was a constant thorn in the side of the Ministry of Defence.

The photograph shows McGinley speaking at a press conference in Japan. As BNTVA chair, he supported campaigns for nuclear justice worldwide, including in the Ukraine and Russia after the Chernobyl disaster of 1986. In Japan, he achieved minor celebrity as the face of a Japanese brand of Scottish porridge oats. In his interview, he recalled a photograph of himself being accompanied by a caption to the following effect: ‘If the oats are good enough for Scottish hibakusha [bomb-affected people], then they should be good enough for us in Japan’.

At the end of his oral history interview, McGinley wryly pondered how much money he had been able to extract from the UK government on behalf of veterans and their families. Having granted the interview whilst living with stage 4 cancer, McGinley sadly passed away only months after the interview was conducted. His courage, humour and lucidity during the recordings are indicative of the great character he demonstrated throughout his leadership of the BNTVA.

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. The project was run in partnership with National Life Stories and the full interview can be accessed at the British Library.

You’ve got to remember that in November 1982, after I did that article in The Daily Record, what happened was it went from local to national, to international. It went worldwide actually, you know. And before we knew where we were, there were interviews with radio, television. At that time Nationwide had taken it up, BBC had taken it up, STV had taken it up, and I had a great relationship with everybody, especially with Nationwide, because I was in touch with Dr Alice Stewart at Birmingham University because she was doing a lot of research at the time, people were sending in information to her, into Nationwide, and it was all going very, very well.

Alice Stewart was a leading radiobiologist?

Yeah.

Right.

She was a fantastic person. So we decided, when it was all coming to fruition, you might say we were getting things all together, everything was going well, and we decided to hold a meeting down with this other guy who – Tom Armstrong – who was another one who made a claim. So we had a meeting in – this is how the BNTVA were formed – we had a meeting on 5th May 1983 at Birmingham University. People present were Philip Mun, Ken McGinley, Dr Alice Stewart, Dr Tom Sorahan and Tom Armstrong. So there was only five people at that meeting when the Association was founded and named that day. We agreed on, some were saying the British Atomic Veterans, and I says this is going to be a long name, but I would just say British Nuclear Test Veterans Association. That’s the one we’ll have.

[ends at 0:02:19]

Dennis Hayden, an RAF technician who served at Maralinga during the mid-1960s, remembers the origins of British Nuclear Test Veterans Association (BNTVA) in the 1980s. Despite being a member of this new organisation, he recalls needing to focus on his own affairs at the time. Hayden praises the efforts of the BNTVA chair, Ken McGinley, who temporarily succeeded in having governmental responsibility for war pensions shifted to the then Department of Social Security. Not long after this landmark achievement, the pension scheme was taken over by the Ministry of Defence.

In more recent years, Hayden has become a leading historian and voice within the test veteran community. He has published two books about test veterans’ campaigns and struggles, The UK’s Nuclear Scandal (2021) and A Legacy of Inherited Criminality (2023).

This is a short extract from an in-depth interview. Dennis Hayden 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.

I was concentrating in the 1980s on my own efforts to try and get back to some sort of normality money-wise. But I did, I was a member of the British Nuclear Test Veterans Association, but I didn’t get on to any of their committees. But I could see that Ken McGinley was doing a terrific job, because it was his initiative in the early 1990s to get the DSSS, the DS- Department of Social Services, to take control of the War Pension Scheme, which as I say, I got on to. But of course, but after I was granted that, the following year in 1993, the Ministry of Defence created a Minister for Veterans and a Veterans Agency, and the War Pension Scheme came under complete control of the Ministry of Defence. That was a loophole that happened between 1990 and 1993. In the early 1990s a lot of pressure was then being put on Ken McGinley, they had to get rid of him.

[ends at 0:01:11]

Robin Woolven joined the RAF as an air signaller in 1955 and progressed to the role of flight commander before stepping down from service in 1978. In this clip, he gives his personal reasons for joining the British Nuclear Test Veterans Association. Woolven alludes to the four official health studies on nuclear test veterans, which were originally commissioned by the Ministry of Defence and compared the health conditions of the UK’s 22,000 test veterans to a control group of the same number. Whilst highly contested, the results of the studies indicate that veterans’ health conditions were not statistically significant. Many veterans vehemently dispute these findings.

The image shows a painting of a Shackleton aircraft during Operation Grapple. Woolven was the signaller on the Shackleton that helped redivert the Libyan-registered freighter, Effie, which had sailed into the exclusion zone before the ‘X’ detonation, the UK’s first successful hydrogen bomb.

This is a short extract from an in-depth interview. Robin Woolven was recorded for the Oral History of British Nuclear Test Veterans project in 2024. The interviewer was Christopher R Hill. The project was run in partnership with National Life Stories and the full interview can be accessed at the British Library.

The reason I joined the British Nuclear Test Veterans Association was, I was concerned that the impression they were giving was that all veterans are invalids in some way, and lots of people following the test have died. But, I was twenty at the time, I would expect lots of my people who were older than me to be dead by the time I got to my mid-eighties. That’s life, or, look at the statistics.

Yeah, and there have been a number of statistical studies which bear that out.

Yeah. There’s a slightly increased chance of some form of cancer, but it’s not statistically significant.

[ends at 0:00:53]

Roger Grace, who served as an ordinary seaman during Operation Mosaic, recalls a nuclear test veteran reunion held at the Adelphi Hotel in Liverpool in the mid-1990s. Grace describes making friends with two other test veterans, both of whom had served on Christmas Island. One of the men invited Grace to go on a tour around Liverpool, where he had grown up during the Second World War.

At reunion events, test veterans are often treated to traditional dancing by the UK’s I-Kiribati diaspora community. The small community of I-Kiribati on Christmas Island often performed such dances on special occasions for British officials and visitors, as shown in the photograph that illustrates this clip.

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

The first reunion I went to was at Liverpool at the Adelphi Hotel. That would have been 90s, mid-90s, I would think, because I had to go up by train because I couldn’t drive at the time, I’d got some problem with my eye. I went there, got in the room and went down and had a look, see what was about, and there was one room where round tables, all the guys there with pint pots and beer bottles on the tables. I thought, that’s not for me. So I went into the ballroom and there was one or two little tables scattered around, and there were two guys sitting at a table with a, I think they’d got a G&T each. I said, ‘Are you with the… ?’ ‘Yeah.’ Said, ‘Can I join you?’ ‘Yeah.’ And that was very strange actually, because although it’s a nuclear test reunion, we didn’t do much, us three didn’t do much about nuclear tests. [laughs] Both of them had been at Christmas Island, one guy was, I think he was fairly high up in the army, because he was involved in the clear-up of Christmas Island, and the other one, I think he was either RAF or army, but he’d been involved in the tests. But the strange thing was, that guy was an ex-policeman, he was an ex-traffic policeman from the next county, Buckinghamshire, and I’d actually probably met him, because I mentioned something and he said, yes, I was involved in that as well. So, we’d probably met. But the other guy, I said the ex-army, I think he was probably captain or major, something like that, he said, well, I’m not really interested in what’s going on with the reunion tomorrow, he said, I was evacuated up here, he said, I wanted to go round and have a look at the places that I went, I went to school up here. So he said, I’m going to get a taxi, do you want to come with me? So I said, well yeah, because I’m not into… So we hired this taxi between us and we went all over the place.

[ends at 0:02:05]

Terry Hilliard, an RAF pilot who collected nuclear cloud samples during Operation Grapple, gives his views on the refusal of the UK government to compensate its nuclear test veterans. He refers to the case of Squadron Leader Terry Gledhill, who during Operation Grapple would assess the nuclear clouds before being the first to fly into them to gather samples. It was not until after Gledhill’s death in 2015 that his family started to get full access to his medical records, which have proven a turning point in the legal campaign against the UK government. The so-called ‘Gledhill memo’ has been particularly influential, as it suggests that the authorities may have hidden the results of blood tests carried out on British troops before and after tests. These results could have provided the data needed by veterans to understand their radiation exposure.

This is a short extract from an in-depth interview. Terry Hilliard 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.

I’ve got no aggro about the whole programme, but they should have, they did, they say they did do medical checks, but they won’t show us, they’re still secret. And Terry Gledhill’s daughter has been to court to get his documents, and they’ve approved, and the court have ordered, the thing, to send all his medical documents to his daughter. That came in yesterday. So that’s a huge step forward. So, some of us can probably get our medical records. But I must say, I’m getting to the stage, look, it’s seventy years ago, it won’t change my health now if I know or not, why cause all the angst, you know, do I really want to start fighting court battles at my age, you know? I’m not at all blaming the Air Force, they have their limitations, they did what they could within the limits, they just didn’t publicise it because… and it was top secret atomic, UK eyes only, they didn’t want the Russians to know what our bombs were like, they didn’t want to know whether we got doses because we didn’t want them to know, and the Chinese hadn’t yet done their bomb, or the French, or anyone else. Or the North Koreans, or the Indians, or the Pakistanis, who’ve all done it now. As I’m sure you know, we’re the only country that hasn’t given financial compensation, all the other countries have given compensation, even to people who just came and watched ours, from other countries like Australia and Canada, they got good compensation just for being there and watching it.

[ends at 0:01:45]

Alan Dowson discusses a class action against the Ministry of Defence, where the claimants were unable to gain access to their medical records. He describes how he thinks the legal system is unfit for dealing with veterans’ appeals, referring to cases going back to the Second World War. After returning from Christmas Island, where he served as a National Serviceman for the RAF, he became increasingly involved in politics, particularly through the Labour Party and the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament (CND), which he joined after returning home from Christmas Island. In later life, he served as Mayor of Peterborough. Dowson is a firm believer in investing in people’s education and the public sector.

This is a short extract from an in-depth interview. Alan Dowson was recorded for the Oral History of British Nuclear Test Veterans project in 2024. The interviewer was Christopher R Hill. The project was run in partnership with National Life Stories and the full interview can be accessed at the British Library.

In the ‘70s, we were taking the class action, and they wouldn’t, they declined to reveal our medical records because of secrecy. I think the records would have been more useful for museums than the Russians.

Yes, yeah.

You know what they had to say, but they weren’t interested. You sit there on the beach, pull your sleeves down and wear a floppy hat and look away from the bomb. They didn’t care a monkeys for it. I don’t know what happened to the officers and senior ranks. For the civilians, they would get OBEs and medals from the Queen at the time. For senior officers, they would get their medals as well. In Wilson Street we had one of the blokes from the Burma railway and there he was coughing his guts up, you know, for four years, in the side street. He died obviously, because he wasn’t recognised. The no award for the treatment. So, we were treated the same as many of those people in the Second World War. The system doesn’t work really, and the system for the veterans is… in the next ten years we’ll all be dead, right? And they’ll be gone. But, for the next four, five years, there’s something the government could do by helping them, and it wouldn’t cost them, but it will cost them something at the moment. So, each six months goes, we lose about twenty or thirty people who die, and that’s removed from the calculation.

And you joined CND, when did you become interested in joining CND?

When I joined Labour. Yeah. Must have been ‘61 when I came back from Christmas Island. I used to start off speeches at meetings. I’m the only one who’s actually seen bombs go off, you boys don’t know what it’s like. Now I've had a rich, varied experience.

[ends at 0:02:43]

Jeff 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 British Nuclear Test Veterans Association (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.

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.

[ends at 0:00:54]

Rayland Peace describes his involvement in LABRATS (Legacy of the Atomic Bomb, Recognition for Atomic Test Survivors), which he initially thought was an arm of the British Nuclear Test Veterans Association (BNTVA). He discusses his initial scepticism towards LABRATS’ ‘look me in the eye’ campaign, as he did not believe the UK government would give medallic recognition to test veterans in his lifetime. He was, however, supportive of the campaign and describes his pride at having been involved in it and having received the Nuclear Test Medal. Peace was a Royal Engineer who participated in both of the Christmas Island test series: Operation Grapple and the American-led Operation Dominic (codenamed Brigadoon in Britain).

This is a short extract from an in-depth interview. Rayland Peace 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.

Hooked into LABRATS. Yeah, I thought they were part and parcel of it, I thought that was just another phase of BNTVA. But I hooked into LABRATS and they were doing a lot about it. And then there was talk, I don’t know, about four or five years or something like that, time’s flown, about we’re asking for a medal. And I used to write, wish you luck on that one then. You know, we’ll all be dead by then. Ha ha ha, and all this crap. And it worked out that they pushed, and pushed, and pushed. I feel proud.

[ends at 0:00:33]

Arthur Dixon discusses ill-health among veterans who served on Christmas Island. He struggles to reconcile the discrepancies in veterans’ health, with some veterans dying in middle-age and others living into their 80s and 90s. In Dixon’s experience, the vast majority of veterans have suffered some sort of illness, though the question of whether this has arisen from their service has proven almost impossible to answer.

Dixon trained as a field engineer and was posted to Christmas Island in 1957 having already served in West Germany. He contributed to road construction and was often commandeered by Aldermaston scientists to support their work during and after Operation Grapple.

This is a short extract from an in-depth interview. Arthur Dixon 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.

Well, I’m fortunate, I’ve got no illness that I can attribute to my time on Christmas Island, yet I’ve got a lot of friends that are no longer with us. And so, I’m split between the idea that some of them died really young, and why would someone who was same age as me, went through the same kind of boy service, military training, pop off at fifty-five. So I think there may be something there, but it’s difficult. I’ve been on several of the things where they’ve done surveys and monitoring people and things like that, and each time the government comes up. But the interesting thing was, we had a local seminar here where they came down and chatted to us about various illnesses, and for, I think about twenty of us in the room, every one had had some kind of illness. Not necessarily what they could attribute to being on Christmas Island, but they’d had an illness, whether it was a cancer or something like that.

[ends at 0:01:02]

Dr Fiona Bowler studied history at the University of Southampton, where she completed her PhD on Britain's atmospheric nuclear testing programme and its impact on the veterans who served in the military during the tests. Following her PhD, Fiona contributed to ‘An Oral History of British Nuclear Test Veterans’ as a Postdoctoral Researcher at the University of South Wales. She is currently completing a book which will be published by Liverpool University Press on the history of the British nuclear test veteran community. Fiona currently works as a Research Associate with the Oxford Centre for the History of Science, Medicine, and Technology, where she is helping to build an oral history archive for the Royal Army Medical Corps.