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Wednesday, April 28, 2004 Maralinga Easter Peace MarchI've copied this from a slightly irreverent blog on radioactive waste - but it's cross-cutting in that it mentions certain Anglican Canons; by a guy of same name as me!This little-known piece of Australia's rich nuclear history is courtesy of David Lloyd LCOL (Retd), former member of the Australian Health Physics team, and from time to time OC the Australian Radiation Detection Unit at Maralinga. Also clandestine hippy peace activist, as it turns out! The story begins back in Pommy Land, where in 1958 the first of many "Easter Peace Marches" from London to the Brit's A-bomb-making facility at Aldermaston occurred. One of the leaders of the Peace March was one Canon Collins (the Pom's Jim Cairns!). One Easter, David Lloyd and a few others with that strange Aussie sense of humour (which delights in taking the mickey out of Pom's in particular, and of anyone in authority) decided that their very serious British colleagues, in between letting their bombs off, were almost certainly missing being at home for the annual Peace March. So they decided to stage one for them. Resourceful lot, they discovered that one of them by name Brindley had an uncanny resemblance to the Anglican Canon Collins. They dressed him in the clothes of the Maralinga RC priest (a shortish Italian, half Brindley's size apparently). The Range Commander and head of the Commonwealth Police ("Peace Officers") were both advised of the prank, and both thought it very funny. The night before, a notice was put over the Tannoy PA system at the Maralinga camp that a group of shabbily-dressed protestors had been seen getting off the train across the Nullabor, and were thought to be heading Maralinga's way. Next morning, the group headed by "Canon Brindley" assembled at the Maralinga security gate, and the announcement went out that all hands were required to stem the flood of demonstrators. Our David Lloyd had long straw locks of hair, courtesy of some old rope cut and held in place under his hat. Other "protestors" carried signs "Peace not Pearce!" (Noah Pearce of AWRE was the Brit in charge of much at the site at that time, and authored the infamous "Pearce Report" - Final Report on Residual Radioactive Contamination of the Maralinga Range and the Emu Site AWRE Report O-16/68 of January 1968 - the one that said all was hunky dory at Maralinga following the Operation Brumby clean-up in 1967). Anyway, for a time the Brit's were completely fooled by this unruly mob of "protestors", and "Canon Brindley" even managed to threaten a few with ex-communication. David Lloyd presented a credible speech about the evils of nuclear weapons, to all assembled on both sides of the security fence. And Pearce, ever the gentleman, timidly approached "Canon Brindley" with a gracious offer: "Excuse me Canon, care to have morning tea with us?" Brindley and his "protestors" accepted the offer, and enjoyed a very salubrious morning tea before exposing the joke to all and sundry. Apparently the Brit's took it very well, and (as is the British habit) were quite happy to laugh at themselves. It is important to mention that the Brit's behaved impeccably in this "incident", because in what will follow their behaviour is nowhere near as admirable. # posted by geoff @ 5:39 pm |
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