Page 19 - CAMPAIGN Spring 2022

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more medical records. I went again to the tribunal and again it was adjourned part-heard for the same reasons.
During Wesley’s young years, I took on a variety of part-time jobs. Sometimes I worked 3 jobs at a time to enable me to give him the same things in life that his friends had. The only difference was they had both parents, he only had me. Ivan and Jo (children from my first marriage) had left home before this point.
In 1997, with the support from my friends, I returned to my part-time job as a post lady. We had been talking about moving to Yorkshire. After several holidays I put in for a transfer to Settle, North Yorkshire. Wesley was about to finish school. Luckily for us a job became vacant, and a college place was found for Wesley to continue his studies.
Meanwhile... My appeal tribunal came up again; this time it was
due to be heard in Leeds. My brother-in-law lived in Wakefield. He was very keen to attend, as of course he knew Jim and he had seen the blisters on his arms on his return from Maralinga.
When appeals are adjourned part-heard, the court always uses
the same representatives sitting on the panel (three on each side of a long table). After the usual discussion with the additional evidence from my brother-in-law, the chairman announced in a very quiet voice that the appeal was ALLOWED!
It took a few minutes for it to sink in after all the years of struggling and three tribunals; now it was finally over. I was recognised as a WAR WIDOW! This was 1999 ten years from when we started.
They could not prove either way whether Jim’s cancer was caused by exposure to radiation or not, but it was so rare it was concluded that exposure to radiation was probably the cause of his early death aged 58 years.
CAMPAIGN SPRING 2022