88 years ago today, my father, Michael Allan Marsh, was born to Robert and Doreen at the Royal Military School of Music, Kneller Hall, Twickenham. He was the eldest of five children. Mick, as he was commonly known later in the Royal Air Force (along with Boggy or Swampy by his RAF colleagues!), lived and breathed military life. He grew up in India, Singapore, Hong Kong and Northern Ireland, living closely with military families, even with one of our very own Grapple veterans, I recently discovered. My grandfather was Band Sergeant of the 1st Battalion of the Black Watch before becoming Bandmaster of the Royal Inniskilling Fusiliers. 

At this point, I'd like to convey my lineage of military ancestors with a recording of Captain Frederick William Wood, who became bandmaster of HM Scots Guards, conducting in 1911 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O1OjO_TfOuQ . Frederick took the Scots Guards to play at the Somme during the First World War, and in 1929 established the Bristol City Police Band. The point I am making is that in well over 150 years of military history within the family and two world wars, no direct military ancestor was treated as disgustingly as Mike by his own government after participating in the Commonwealth race for the nuclear deterrent.

Dad was technical, and, after a short stint in the Merchant Navy, which he joined to move from Omagh as he was picked on for being the son of a British army officer, he enlisted in the RAF on 24 September 1953, aged 19. Dad served in the RAF until 3 March 1976, where, at the time of discharge he was Chief Technician on C-130s at RAF Lyneham. Indeed, myself and my sister were both born in the same room at Princess Alexandra’s Royal Air Force Hospital, Wroughton, Wiltshire. 

I was familiar with comments that our servicemen were really looked after, particularly with the marvellous array of food presented at RAF Lyneham, which I remember well (particularly when I visited Lyneham as a Corporal in the RAF cadets in 1988 to participate in circuits and bumps in a stunning yet hefty Hercules transporter 'plane). The irony was that in the case of my father and the 21,356 other British nuclear test veterans, their moral fabric was breached by the UK government at the atmospheric testing and they really weren't looked after at all... 

Dad, with the assistance of the BNTVA (namely Derek Fiddaman from 1997, Grapple veteran and member of the Goldfish Club, and Ken McGinley, then Chairman of the Association), and the Royal Air Force Association, applied for a war pension on 14 October 1997, after being diagnosed with an inoperable adenocarcinoma of the gastro-oesophageal junction in May 1997 further to a duodenal ulcer ten years previously. Dad’s service records are a troubling read; there are documents that I have wanted to become immersed in yet dreaded the context knowing the humanity behind the paperwork. The records clearly describe his incurable cancer in great detail, that the tumour had spread into his pancreas, and the impact of the sheer moral injury that had occurred during his time at Maralinga... 

Naga Munchetty took so much interest in hearing about personal connections and the familial legacy of the nuclear tests on veterans and their families recently during her interview of 23 April 2022 on BBC Breakfast, and spoke at length to me about the effect of the atmospheric testing on my father.

Before I get stuck into correspondence between my mother and Tony Blair, the AWE, the Ministry of Defence, service records and war pensions’ documentation, I would like to share a document that Ken McGinley sent to my father in 1998 entitled, “Radiation Exposure Guidance for Military Operations – ACE Policy for Defensive Measures against Low Level Radiological Hazards during Military Operations” (NATO Unclassified, 2 Aug 1996)…  

“(2). Low-level Radiation (LLR) exposure produces a risk to soldiers of long-term health consequences. The doses received from these exposures are higher than those routinely received by health physics workers and the general public and are in the range from background radiation to 70 cGy. The primary consequence of exposure may be induction of cancer in the longer-term post exposure. Additional health risks that may occur are teratogenesis and mutagenesis and their associated psychological and social consequences. The hazard from LLR may result from Alpha, Beta or Gamma radiation.” 

There is no time limit on cancers, and as Professor Robert (Bo) Jacobs has highlighted in the attached film Nuclear Bodies: Internal & External Radiation on Vimeo,  if an atomic or nuclear blast is experienced then radiation penetrates straight through that person. There should be no debate on this topic in contemporary society and with current scientific thought. Kite, the test that Dad witnessed during the Buffalo series, caused radiation to pass over Maralinga Village; even Sir William Penney spoke of this happening and it is recorded in the McClelland Royal Commission 1984-1985. 

The Evidence:

Dad's Blue Book entry: 160 Wing;  dose_gamma none recorded 

20 October 1999:

Dr Phil Gilvin, National Radiological Protection Board (NRPB), in a letter to my mother,

“I have been in contact with the Defence Evaluation and Research Agency (DERA) Radiation Protection Service (DRPS) at Alverstoke, and with AWE at Aldermaston, to see if they could help. DRPS had no records relating to your late husband, but AWE were able to find something. According to their records Mr Marsh was involved in Operations Buffalo and Antler in 1956/57, but was not an aircrew member, nor was he in Active Handling Flight, and was therefore not issued with radiation dosemeters. His contact with radiation was likely to have been very slight. This is the information AWE have.” 

27 October 1999:

Letter from Pauline Johnson, Head of Health Effects, AWE to my mother,  

“No doses are recorded.  

All personnel who served at Operation BUFFALO were issued with two film-badge dosemeters. At that time, the minimum that the dosemeter was capable of recording (the threshold), was 20 milliRoentgen (or 0.2 milliSievert in the modern units). In cases where the dosemeters indicated no exposure above this threshold, records were not always kept. AWE is confident, however, that had the doses been in excess of threshold records to that effect would have been kept. AWE has no record of doses to Mr Marsh. It is therefore assumed that the dosemeters issued to him indicated no exposure above threshold. Similarly, all personnel who served at Operation ANTLER were issued with one film-badge dosemeter. It is thus similarly assumed that Mr Marsh, if he was present at the operation, was issued with a personal film-badge dosemeter covering the period of Operation ANTLER which on assessment showed no level of exposure above the minimum recordable (threshold) of 20 milliRoentgen (0.2 milliSievert). 

The assessed effective dose equivalent received by Mr Marsh consequent upon his participation in Operations BUFFALO and ANTLER was therefore at most: 

BUFFALO 2 general-issue film badges   0.4 milliSievert 

ANTLER 1 general-issue film badge        0.2 milliSievert

Total                        0.6 milliSievert 

It was in all probability much less.” 

November 1999:

Letter from Pauline Johnson to my mother, “The fact that film badges were issued to all participants at Operation Buffalo is attested by former AWE staff who were there at the time, and confirmed in such documents as the Safety Regulations for the Maralinga Range and a notice put out by the Trials Co-ordinator. I cannot say why more detailed records of film badge issue were not kept. There was no statutory requirement at the time to do so.” 

16 November 1999:

Derek Bingham PhD, NRPB to my mother, “Dear Mrs Marsh, Further to the reply by Dr Gilvin (20 October 1999) regarding radiation records for your husband, please find enclosed information for him that was used in a study of the health of nuclear weapon test participants. The record for the study agrees with the response from Dr Gilvin that your husband served at Buffalo and Antler tests but that he was not monitored for radiation exposure.” 

If you’re wondering concerning a response from Prime Minister Blair about my mother’s concerns, he never replied... 

Pensions Appeal Tribunal (Entitlement): 

So, based on the pensions' entitlement, which was declined, the government response was weighted on my father, who was suffering from an incurable cancer with a palliative outlook.

Dad was put in the impossible position of proving that he had been subjected to ionising radiation at Maralinga, despite the fact that the National Radiological Protection Board and the Atomic Weapons' Establishment state that they hadn't monitored him for radiation exposure at all!

This is a completely unfeasible task for the majority of nuclear test veterans, as seen in the February release of the Fourth Analysis of the Nuclear Test Participants' Study by Gillies and Haylock ( The new study of UK nuclear test veterans - IOPscience ). This latest study reveals that only 23% of the nuclear weapons' test participants were actually monitored by dosemeter for ionising radiation and 64% of the dosemeters didn't show a reading. On looking at Christmas Island regulation documents, the emulsifying layer on the film badges would rub off quickly in the humidity. This reveals that the emphasis on film badges is a complete misnomer, yet the government, knowing that dosemeters were seldom issued, or readings taken, still put the nuclear test veteran in the position of providing evidence of something that they cannot achieve and they are rejected for war pensions again and again... When they pass away, their widows are also rejected from receiving a war widows' pension due to the lack of dosemeter readings.

So, in a nutshell, a dying man who had the right to apply for a military war disablement pension, never had any chance of being successful due to the shifty way in which the radiation dosemeters weren't provided by the government. Dad's hopes were built up, his time was wasted, his physical health deteriorated and the worries exacerbated concerning finances, worries about my mother and the Act of Omission that the Ministry of Defence had breached, tantamount to a moral injury.  Dad's only fight at that time should have been against the malignant cells within his own body rather than being told that although his type of cancer was caused by ionising radiation, he couldn't provide proof of irradiation.

The Act of Commission of participating in the atomic testing and the Act of Betrayal of the participants in witnessing the most fearful manmade bomb in history under orders from their own side as "observers" is simply appalling. The nuclear bomb remains the most fearful and feared weapon in 2022; Why would a government order their own men to witness this horrifying spectacle?... Time and time again...

My mother pursued avenues long and hard for my father, and I admire her tenacity. I believe that she discovered vital information, which sadly puts the government in an extremely bad light concerning the nuclear test veteran and their war pensions’ claims. Is this simply a case of the left hand doesn’t know what the right hand is doing, or is there more at play? 

The letters and pension document reveal the words used by government officials, the Secretary of State and scientists: 'assumed', 'likely' and 'probability'. How can the government base their arguments of awarding or disallowing life-changing war pensions and decision-making on non-scientific vagueness? Such words strike blows to the veteran concerned, and, much as Veterans UK state that they will always look at evidence and give the veteran the benefit, this is simply a case of speaking empty platitudes.

After sitting in a war pensions’ adjournment hearing panel in February 2022, I can relay first-hand how hard it is for an elderly veteran to sit in front of a panel including a judge and give evidence to support their claim. The ongoing nit-picking and criticism from the court is extreme, and the burden is for the nuclear test veteran to establish that their perceived injury is attributable to ionising radiation, rather than a service-related injury.  The government has clearly been negligent in monitoring and protecting these men. Please see the attached documents from Dad's war pension below which reveal the responses of the government.

It is clear from the correspondence that my father was not issued with any film badges whilst attending Operations Buffalo and Antler, and neither was he equipped with any protective clothing or equipment when handling the cloud sniffer aeroplanes. However, this did not stop the government from using their false, repetitive stock phrases concerning a minimal fabricated radiation dose. It's a travesty to repeat this rhetoric in front of a terminally ill veteran who served his country for 22 years.

Dad writes,

"During exposure to nuclear fallout at Maralinga, and suspected contamination from handling equipment used on aircraft that passed at low altitude (500ft), through the post explosion nuclear cloud, no special clothing was worn neither were there any instructions to use special garments which were (as far as we were concerned), not available."

The government's response stated,

"Our doctors have looked at your case again for this condition - carcinoma of the oesophago-gastric junction but they still do not accept that the condition you are appealing about was caused by your service or made worse by your service...Cancer of the stomach is conclusively linked to radiation exposure, being confirmed by the report of the Radiation Effect Research Foundation follow-up study on survivors of the atomic bomb."

Then, finally...

"Claim for carcinoma of the oesophago-gastric junction, rejected."

The rejection was made on 1 March 1999 and Dad passed away on 18 April 1999.

Why was Dad put in an impossible position by the government to prove that he had encountered ionising radiation, when the government hadn't even bothered monitoring him? Why does the nuclear test veteran have to prove something that cannot be proven due to the lack of safety mechanisms in the world of invisible radiation?

My father was the loveliest of men; I valued every moment we had together.  The repercussions of the neglect and insults he encountered by the government at a time of terminal illness (he passed away on Mum's birthday, 18 April 1999), meant that he went through his final months struggling, couldn't access any assistance with bills due to his war pension rejection. Dad became so disillusioned in his final months, after having shown such pride in his military service for over two decades. He was convinced that his incurable cancer came about from neglect and bad-decision making by the Ministry of Defence.

The UK really needs to take radical measures to become the best country to be a veteran, and our veterans' service and injuries should be respected.  Too many nuclear test veterans have suffered in a similar way to Dad, and they need to be compensated individually through the war pensions' scheme.