麻豆社

On the 8th November 1957, the six people reunited here were all witness to Britain鈥檚 first megaton Hydrogen bomb test at Christmas Island, a tiny coral atoll in the mid-Pacific ocean. Nothing could have prepared them for what they were about to experience, and nothing has made such an impression on their lives in the years since.

Sitting together around a table, for the first time in almost 50 years, they are able to share their experience with others who understand exactly what it was like. What emerges is an astonishing mix of the day-to-day and the cataclysmic.

It is their experience of the megaton Hydrogen bomb explosion itself which has burned itself into the memory of the six discussion members most vividly, as they describe how they viewed the event from the air, at sea, and on land. Frank Corduroy pushed the button which released the bomb from his RAF Valient jet, National Serviceman Nick Harden and regular Sergeant Harry O鈥橲ullivan were sitting under coconut palms 48,000feet below wearing only shorts and sunglasses and waiting for the end to come, District Officer Michael Ward and his wife Eileen Ward were on the bridge of HMS Messina, responsible for the native Islanders who had been ushered into the ships hold to be shown Cowboy films to distract their attention from one million tons of explosive power being detonated 8,000 feet above them; and Aldermaston scientist Peter Jones, was closest to Ground Zero in an 8ft metal cube, recording data from the blast.

Producer: Adam Fowler
Series Producer: David Prest
The Reunion is a Whistledown Production for 麻豆社 Radio 4