by Alan Rimmer
In Adelaide, Murdo managed to get himself a job as a deckhand on a large tramp steamer bound for Liverpool. But before he left he bought himself some fresh clothes and then visited a barber and steam room in the centre of town.
“I felt the need to get shut of all the dust,” he explained. “I had my head shaved and later I just sat in the steam booth for about an hour with the heat turned up full blast. When I came out I looked like a lobster, but I felt clean. It was good to change into my new clothes and I put my old ones in a bin. I retain in my mind a very clear memory of a little pile of red dust on the floor of my lodgings where I’d changed out of my old clothes.
“My ship took its own sweet time on the crossing to Liverpool, which was just fine by me. I was in no hurry and I enjoyed watching the dolphins that played alongside the boat as we steamed out of Adelaide.
“It took me more than six weeks to get home. Lewis never looked more beautiful. There were little fishing boats in the harbour and the air was tangy with fish and salt. I felt clean for the first time in over a year. It was good to be home.”
With the money he had saved, Murdo bought a small croft in the tiny hamlet of Bac and settled down to the life of a simple shepherd. “I didn’t want to do anything else,” he said. “I’d had enough of travel and foreign parts.”
Later he met Margaret, from Stornaway, and they married. The couple settled into the life of crofters and wanted for nothing. Soon Margaret was pregnant and the couple looked forward to having a child to complete their happiness. “I wanted a girl; Margaret wanted a boy, but really we didn’t care which,” Murdo said. “We just wanted a healthy child”
Their son was born one June evening in 1960. Murdo was waiting anxiously outside the delivery room when there was a sudden commotion.
He recalled: “I was waiting in the corridor outside while Margaret was being helped in her confinement by the midwife. She seemed to be in there a long time, but I wasn’t too worried. I was anxious to find out what we were going to have.
“Suddenly I heard this crying and it sounded like Margaret. I got up to go to the door, but the midwife came out and shooed me away. Another nurse arrived, and then a doctor. Margaret was still crying, and I knew something was wrong.
“I went to the door again, but was told to sit down by the nurse. After a while the midwife came out carrying a little bundle wrapped in a blanket. ‘Is that our baby?’ I shouted as she disappeared down the corridor. Margaret was still crying and I was desperately anxious.
“A nurse asked me if I wanted a cup of tea. I said, ‘No, I do not want a cup of tea. I want to know what is happening.’ The nurse said the doctor would be with me soon. I demanded to see Margaret and at last the doctor came out to talk to me.
“I forget his name, but I took a dislike to him. He said in an almost matter-of-fact way that there was something seriously wrong with our wee boy. He said he wasn’t expected to live, that these things sometimes happen, it was God’s will, stupid things like that. I said I wanted to see Margaret and he just shrugged his shoulders and said it would be best if she rested, and then walked away. I went into see Margaret, but they must have given her something because she was fast asleep. I stayed with her all night; I didn’t want her to wake up alone. You can imagine what was going through my head as I waited.”
The next day the couple were told their baby had severe malformations and wasn’t expected to survive the day. The hospital chaplain was on hand to christen the child and they agreed to call him John Alexander.
“We were numb with shock,” Murdo said. “They said it was best if we didn’t see our son, and we just went along with it. In any case Margaret was heavily sedated and I was in despair. I don’t know how we got through the next few days.”
At the end of the week Margaret was sent home. They expected to hear any day that John, who was in an isolation ward, had died, but the child evidently had other ideas. Not only did he survive, he seemed to thrive and after a while the doctors relented and consented to them seeing their son.
Murdo said: “We were shown into this dimly-lit room away from the main hospital where all the other mothers were. I suppose they didn’t want to upset them. The nurse let us be and stood quietly in a corner while we walked over to the crib.
“At first I couldn’t see what was wrong with our wee boy. He was all wrapped up in blankets and he had a little woollen helmet on his head. But when Margaret picked him up we realised what a sad sight he was. His face was all twisted; Margaret started crying and John opened his eyes. In my shock all I could think of was how big his eyes were. He seemed to be looking at us, but I knew that was impossible. We stayed with him for about an hour and in all that time he never made a sound.”
On the way home, Murdo and Margaret decided they were going to keep their son. They had been resigned to giving him up because of what the doctors had been saying. But after seeing him and holding him, they had quite simply fallen in love with him.
They informed the hospital the next day, but to their consternation the doctors said they didn’t think John would ever be able to go home. Murdo angrily demanded to see a consultant, but was told bluntly that not only couldn’t John go home, but there was to be an inquiry into how the child’s condition had come about.
Mrs MacLeod was later questioned at length about what had happened during her pregnancy: what she had eaten, had she had any falls, had she taken any drugs? The questions became more and more intrusive.
“They were almost making out like it was our fault,” Murdo said. “It just didn’t make any sense. Margaret had never taken so much as an aspirin during her pregnancy. I didn’t have a clue what they were getting at.”
Murdo decided to tell the doctors about his experiences at Maralinga: “I’d pushed it to the back of my mind, but as soon as I saw John I thought of those wretched dingo pups I found out in the desert after the bomb blast. I don’t know why, but I was suddenly convinced John’s condition was because of the bomb.”
He voiced his fears to a doctor and was frustrated when the man showed little interest. The doctor took notes, but said he was unable to say one way or the other if they were connected, adding that he ‘rather doubted it’.
Murdo insisted, however, that it be looked in to, and the doctor reluctantly agreed to take it up with his colleagues. Meanwhile John continued to improve and he was moved to the hospital’s geriatric unit (it was felt his presence would be too upsetting on the baby ward) where he soon became a firm favourite with the old folk.
Murdo said: “We wanted to take him home, but the doctors thought it would be best if he stayed on at hospital. They said he would be subjected to ridicule from other children if he was allowed out. We didn’t like it, but the doctors said John still needed a lot of treatment and it was best if they kept an eye on him.
“We bided our time because we wanted what was best for him. But we yearned to take him home. John was such a bright, happy little boy. He used to crawl all over the ward, getting up to mischief and making everyone laugh. As soon as we walked into the ward he would scoot over to us and throw his arms around us, and he used to cry when we left. I begged the doctors to let him come home with us, but they always seemed to find some excuse for him to stay.”
During this time Murdo was surprised to receive a summons to the hospital to see a consultant who had been sent up from London. Murdo was expecting a talk about his son and, hopefully, be given news about when he could take him home. Instead, he found himself being effectively chastised for bringing up the A-bomb tests.
“I was greatly surprised,” he said. “This man questioned me quite severely about why I thought the bomb tests had anything to do with John. I told him about the animals and the fact I had no protective clothing at all and that I couldn’t think of any other reason why John was born the way he was.
“The consultant got very impatient with this and told me in no uncertain terms that ‘all that’ had nothing whatever to do with John or what had happened to
him. He told me I must just wipe all that from my mind. He repeated that several times. He tried to make me feel foolish, as though it wasn’t my business to be worrying about ‘all that.’ The man even accused me of scaremongering and it wouldn’t help anything if I carried on talking like that. I was most surprised by his attitude. After all I was only trying to get to the bottom of why my son was born the way he was.”
Murdo was in for an even bigger surprise a few days later when he was again summoned to the hospital.
“I was shown into this room with all these people sitting round a table. I didn‘t know most of them, didn’t know where they had come from. It was like going before some sort of tribunal and I was on trial. One of the few people I did know, a doctor, told me that John’s condition was so serious that it was doubtful he would ever be allowed home. I was told it was in the child’s best interests if the local authority took responsibility for him. I started to protest, but another man chipped in and said that everything would be taken care of. A special place had been prepared for John on the mainland where he would get all the care and attention he needed.”
A document was produced for Murdo to sign. He found himself staring at an official form, a care order, effectively relinquishing the MacLeod’s from all parental rights to their son. Confused and with the anger boiling inside, Murdo demanded to know the reason for the sudden change in attitude. He pointed out that assurances had been given they would be able to take John home at some stage.
The vague replies he received made him even angrier: “They wouldn’t give me a straight answer to anything. I felt we had been messed around for long enough. I was suddenly very afraid we might never see our wee lad again. I remember shouting at them that we loved our son and meant to have him with us, no matter what they thought and I remember throwing the document at them across the table. ‘I’m not signing that,’ I said and walked out.
“When I got home I didn’t tell Margaret because it would have been too upsetting. I did tell her it might be longer than we thought before we could have John with us.”
In fact it was more than a year before the family were united. During that time Murdo was involved in an almost constant battle with the authorities who said they wanted to keep John for what seemed an almost endless series of tests.
Murdo recalled: “I was convinced they were hiding something from me. Looking back now I am more convinced than ever. At one stage they even admitted to me there was nothing more medically that could be done for John, yet they still wanted to carry out tests.
“Why? I asked myself over and over again. They even took him to Edinburgh for some reason and didn’t even tell us. I realise now that what they were doing was wrong, but what could I do? I knew nothing about the law and I mistrusted lawyers even more than I did the doctors. All I could do was keep battling away at them, insisting they let John come home.”
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.
CHILDREN OF THE BOMB
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 4th 1957 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 adven
ture 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 11th April 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.
