Reg and Deirdre pushed six-year-old Johnny across the park. It was a glorious spring day – sunshine, a light breeze, the ducks on the lake. Johnny squealed, and dribbled with delight, the weekly outing, away from the home, just him, his Mum, Dad and the birds.
Seven years earlier, Reggie piloted the aircraft that deployed the only British atomic weapon dropped from a plane.
Reg had always assumed it was his charm that got him selected for the Australian tour. A routine application, his schmoozed interview, confirming his endorsement to fly the new Vickers Valliant bomber, and he was onto the 36-hour flight, London to Adelaide.
”Just pack a light suitcase, you’ll be home by Christmas” the flight sergeant had advised, news that brought some comfort to his young bride. “Think of the extra money, love. We’ll have enough for that house deposit.”
It was a short hop from Adelaide up into the remote desert, a secret British military base codenamed Maralinga. Reggie teamed up with the other 1500 service personnel. While the village was being finished, his job was pretty cushy – mostly ferrying VIPs between Adelaide and the testing site, bringing in supplies and conducting aerial familiarizations of the surrounding desert.
Christmas came – the crush at the Officer’s Mess was only challenged by the rigours of negotiating the trip across the crowded room towards the catering station. He’d sourced and flown in the large Christmas tree, gift-wrapped cases of beer, a festive distraction that kept him and the rest of the officers in high spirits.
He’d spoken to Deirdre, and his parents – able to let them know that he was in the Australian desert “somewhere”, and that the daytime temperatures were over 110 degrees, every day!
Festive excitement mellowed. Crews were now far more focused, there was a sense of drama sweeping the base and despite efforts to keep the operational teams separate, and incommunicado, confidential chit chat established that the ‘pointy-end’ was approaching.
Reggie’s Vickers’ bomber flights were tightly monitored, a routine, practiced over and over – dropping a 44-gallon drum of water through the bomb bay onto a ground target. Code named Kite, his brief included dropping the weapon, and then, with special collectors attached, to circle around and fly through the mushroom cloud.
Reg was the toast of the Mess that evening – much congratulatory back-slapping, maybe a few too many beers, slurring, a stagger and an early night. His roommate called the medic at 2 am as Reg noisily rose from his cot, yelled something incomprehensible and fainted, flat-out onto the floor.
He was in an isolated room off the end of the sickbay for a week before being evacuated back to the RAF military hospital at Uxbridge. He was again in an isolation unit, for two months, before Deirdre and his parents were even advised of his return to the UK.
He was eventually discharged, with a small military pension and the deposit on a small cottage. Johnny arrived. The Doctors advised it might be spina bifida!