Our Planet, The People, My Blood

A Welsh family beset by health problems. A shocking miscarriage rate in Nevada. Communities unable to return to their ancestral lands decades after being told that they could. An old man who remembers the most beautiful thing he ever saw, with colours beyond imagining, but shudders, even now, at the thought of it. All these things are connected – difficult, perhaps, to prove case by case, but obvious when looked at in their mass. “All they did was kill their own...and people are still dying,” says downwinder Mary Dickson.

When J Robert Oppenheimer set off the first atomic bomb test, he did so despite his belief that the atmosphere of our entire planet could ignite. Needless to say, we got lucky there, but what many people don’t realise is that, between the nuclear powers, over 2,000 further tests were carried out. Daniel Everitt-Lock’s documentary addresses the death and suffering that took place as a result, and the ways in which the resulting damage continues to affect people generations later.

“It was the most frightening thing you could ever, ever experience,” one soldier remembers. He was amongst those who served in Operation Grapple on Christmas Island, between 1957 and 1958, when 248 detonations took place in 78 days. The witnesses were told to ball up their fists and press them into their eyes. Still, the brilliance of each blast was such that they could see all the bones and tendons inside their hands, through their eyelids. “It was so bright it obliterated the sun,” says another.

We hear from the son of one such man, who died of a heart attack at just 41. He was, we’re told, a guy who enjoyed Navy life, who liked a drink and loved playing football. After his service he went on to have a daughter who had problems with her teeth, eyes and bones at birth, as well as auto-immune disorders. We will hear about similar issues experienced by a lot of descendents. A study on the matter was rewritten by the MOD, who took charge of all subsequent research and determined who would be included in samples.

It’s when the documentary moves on to loook at the international picture that we get a clearer perspective on this. With a small budget, Everitt-Lock couldn’t go everywhere that bombs were tested, but he takes in an impressive sample of affected populations. We visit the Nevada site where 948 tests were carried out, where the local population, who came to be known as downwinders, began to keep their own records after they realised that their rate of severe childhood illnesses was well above the norm. We meet the people of the Marshall Islands, now living in permanent exile, two of their islands described simply as ‘evaporated’. And in Marilinga, Australia, we find a desert still conteminated by plutonium from UK tests, the foods and water sources traditionally used by its indigenous people rendered poisonous.

Attempts to get some kind of justice for all this are ongoing. Everitt-Lock doesn’t have room to go into them all in depth, but does take a look at the history of these efforts in he UK, providing interested viewers with a good starting point for looking up more. The most important thing about the documentary, however, is that its scope makes it impossible to deny the problem – and raises interesting questions about just how much those in power knew in advance. It’s a powerful piece of work, bringing vast issues down to a human scale – and in light of ongoing debates, it’s very necessary.

Reviewed on: 14 May 2026