Alan Rimmer - Between Heaven and Hell

The turning point came when Murdo’s local community decided to rally around to help. They’d heard about little John and began to lobby local politicians to do something about him. The pressure finally brought results and John, at last, was released into the care of his parents.

They took John home in triumph and the whole village turned out for a celebration. John was given pride of place at a big party and all the children came to wish him well. Far from ridiculing him, they all fought over who was going to be his best friend.

The MacLeod’s hugged each other and cried as they watched John at the table surrounded by all his new friends. John sat smiling, loving every minute of it. Murdo said: “Some said he looked like a little old man, but we loved him. I knew we had done the right thing in bringing him home.”

But John was still a very sick little boy and they were warned something would take him sooner rather than later. John Alexander MacLeod, died in his mother’s arms at two o’clock on the morning of December 20, 1963. He was three and a half years old and his death, according to the certificate, was due to a brain haemorrhage.

The whole village turned out for his funeral. Prayers were said in local churches, and children in the village school were given the morning off. Bells pealed as the small funeral cortege made its way to the little hilltop cemetery at the end of the village. There, buffeted by the clean, wild Atlantic winds, little John, a victim of ‘God’s will’ was laid to rest.

John MacLeod introduced a new dimension to the nuclear veterans’ campaign. The idea that men, who may have been exposed to radiation many years ago, could father ‘mutant children’ (as some of the more lurid sections of the press later dubbed them) had something of a Hollywood ‘B’ movie ring to it.

McGinley decided to contact other BNTVA members to try to gauge the extent of the problem. He was staggered by the results. A pattern emerged showing that throughout the late 1950s and early 1960s hundreds of deformed, crippled and sick babies were born to the wives and partners of test veterans.

The records later showed that more than 750 children suffered various genetic disorders. Incidences of cancer, blood disease, Down’s syndrome, spina bifida and other crippling illnesses were well above normal levels. Whole families were affected; it was almost like a biblical plague, and yet no-one had sounded the alarm. How had this scandal gone unnoticed for so long?

A very prominent Welsh politician, whose sister’s husband had spent two years on Christmas Island, provided one answer. He said his sister was so overwhelmed by grief at what had happened to her family that she was simply unable to talk about it. He said her husband, a soldier, had died of pancreatic cancer at the age of 39.

He recalled: “My sister and her family have suffered most dreadfully. When her husband was diagnosed with cancer he was treated appallingly. The Army treated him like a pariah because he blamed his presence on Christmas Island for his illness, and the doctors made him feel like a fool. Neither he nor his wife was given any help or support. She nursed him until he died. And he died a very bitter man because of the things that had happened to his children.”

The couple’s first child, conceived soon after he came home, lived only for an hour. The child had no top to its head and was deformed. The next child seemed to be OK, but the joy was short-lived. Blood tests revealed the baby, a son, had an incurable type of leukaemia. He is being kept alive on drugs, but his mother has been told it is only a matter of time. As if that wasn’t enough, their third child, a little girl, was born with a hair-lip and cleft palate.

Many other families of veterans displayed a similar reluctance to talk. It went a long way to providing an explanation why the scandal had remained concealed for so many years.

These people simply had no desire for their agony to be resurrected once again, especially in the columns of a newspaper or the flickering light of a TV screen. Nevertheless, enough people decided the time had come to speak out.

Archie Ross, who was at Grapple Y had been skeptical about the possible adverse health effects. He just did not believe the bomb was responsible for the cataracts on his eyes, or the terrible suffering endured by his malformed daughter.

It took a remarkable coincidence and a bit of detective work to convince him. Overnight he turned from doubting Thomas to believer. His conversion began with a telephone call to an old RAF colleague whom he had not seen since they were together on Christmas Island in 1958.

Mr Ross recalls: “I was 23-yrs-old and newly married and I faced the prospect of a year under canvas on this fly-blown desert island. But I didn’t have much time to moan. I arrived on November 4 th1957 and four days later I witnessed the most impressive and terrifying device I will ever see, the detonation of the hydrogen bomb.

“But I had great trust in my superiors and also in the British Government and scientists. I believed they would never send men into a situation that was suspect, or dangerous, or untried without being certain it was all safe, sound and secure.

“I served my time reluctantly, but with ever hopeful prospect of returning home safely to the new adventure of married life. I wished and worked like all the other men who worked with me, the time away. Having spent all but three days short of a year, I returned home in November 1958 to as near a normal life as possible in H.M. forces, and went about my life.

“On 11 thApril 1960, my wife gave birth to a little girl, Julie, and the grief of finding this tiny tot malformed was indescribable. The cause? No-one could say; no-one understood. The doctors said it was an act of God, but a few people suggested it could have been as a result of Christmas Island.

“I was totally, but totally unconvinced. As far as I was concerned there was absolutely no reason for it to be Christmas Island. There was nothing wrong with me. I was unaffected. Julie’s condition was simply hard luck. An accident. An act of God.

“In any event, we were far too concerned about our daughter to be worried about why she had been born that way. Our tiny child, at the age of two years, commenced a series of 16 major operations, ending at the age of 17.

“The people at Great Ormond Street Hospital for sick children were marvelous. They were so kind to our little girl who hated operations, who arrived sometimes twice a year pale-faced with fear, who tried to smile, desperately and bravely, hoping the operation would be cancelled, but still going through with it.

“There was a lot of talk of thalidomide at the time, but never about Julie. We were on our own; there was no comfort in knowledge, nothing to blame. No-one knew what caused Julie to be malformed.

“Then things started to go wrong with my own health. At the age of 45 I began to have very itchy eyes. At the age of 47, my eyelashes began to grow into my eyes. At 48 the nuisance became an ordeal. Then a young doctor noticed skin adhesions in my right eye. It soon developed into my left eye. He sent me to a specialist who told me he didn’t know what was causing the problem and that he had never seen it in anyone of my age.

“The specialist asked me questions and he became very interested when I mentioned Christmas Island. He said bright, flashing lights could have caused my problem. He told me of the nuclear veterans association and advised me to contact them. I felt I would be better advised seeking another specialist, which I did. To my surprise he also advised me to contact the association, so I did.

“I spoke to the British Nuclear Tests Veterans’ Association and I told them I was extremely sceptical. They suggested I should contact one or two of my old comrades from Christmas Island. I was impressed by the fact they did not try to force opinions on me, so I decided to do a bit of detective work.