A Garston veteran has been awarded a medal to celebrate his help with the UK’s nuclear weapons testing programme in the 1950s and 1960s.
Tom Campbell, 74, is the recipient of the Nuclear Test Medal, awarded to him by the British government for his work in assisting with Operation Brumby in 1967 when he was just 18 years old.
Nuclear tests were carried out at Maralinga in South Australia in the 1950s and 1960s. When the site closed, the British government conducted a clean-up, Operation Brumby, to prevent nuclear contamination.
As a member of the Corps of the Royal Electrical and Mechanical Engineers, he went to Maralinga in South Australia to help reduce the effect of nuclear contamination following tests in 1956 and 1957 and clear up the rubble.
Speaking to Garston News about the medal and his time working on the clean-up operation, Tom said: “It feels very good to know that we’ve done something important, and we’re being recognised for it. It was a difficult time, and a lot of people died due to the radiation, and there’s not a lot said about that.
“When you see the size of the craters the bombs made, the size was incredible. The bomb was fast; in the ground you could see that.
“We were British soldiers working in that exclusion zone. At the time, the government didn’t want to say that people were dying from too much radiation. I suppose I’m very lucky that I didn’t get anything. My doctor used to say I should glow in the dark.”
Inspired by the military films of his childhood, Tom would later be posted across the world in his role as a soldier, including in Germany and in the then Trucial States (today known as the United Arab Emirates).
It was in Germany in 1971 that Tom was seriously injured during a military exercise. He was left paralysed from the waist down and has used a wheelchair ever since.
But this hasn’t stopped him from continuing to live a full life. He moved to Kytes Estate in Garston to be closer to Stoke Mandeville Hospital, where he had previously undergone treatment.
He also became heavily involved in the disabled sport of shooting. Having joined the British shooting team, he held a world record in the sport for several years, and even competed in the 1988 Paralympics in Seoul, South Korea.
Speaking about this period of his life, Tom said: “Although I was in a wheelchair it didn’t stop me from doing what I wanted.
“I’d shot for the military before that, but I was very lucky that my good side after the injury ended up being the side with my trigger finger. If it had been reversed, I wouldn’t have been able to do it.”
Throughout his life, Tom has also raised a family, and visited more than 20 countries.
Though the new medals were announced by the government last year, it wasn’t until the Remembrance Day services last month that many veterans involved in the tests received their awards.
The design of the medal shows an atom design surrounded by olive branches, and is one of the first medals to bear the likeness of the new His Majesety the King Charles III.
Hello Tom I congratulate you on receipt of your medal. I was the key person involved in the partial clean-up. in the 1990s. My second book about the project was released in September – title is Maralinga Mystery. In my book I am somewhat critical of some aspects of Operation Brumby even though I recognise the constraints placed on you. In the meantime, I offer a quote from my copy of Major Cook’s report of Brumby: “Sergeant Butler broke a bone in his foot while repairing a tractor. He was evacuated to Adelaide but returned to duty wearing a plaster cast. A week later, while supervising work on another tractor, the tyre ring blew off breaking his arm. He was evacuated to Adelaide and again returned to duty now with a foot and an arm in plaster. He left the range with the last party but contracted pneumonia and was left behind at the RAAF Hospital at Edinburgh Field, Adelaide. Later he was flown home by RAF Medevac from Singapore, arriving in UK on 28 August 67.”
I wish you well in the future. Regards
Alan Parkinson