This is the extraordinary story of Britain’s postwar nuclear weapons programme and its devastating legacy. The film reveals the full extent of the British government’s nuclear tests in Australia and the South Pacific in the 1950s and 1960s. 39,000 British and Commonwealth servicemen witnessed 45 atomic and hydrogen bombs and hundreds of radioactive experiments.

This feature documentary exposes the debilitating health conditions that have blighted the lives of veterans, descendants and indigenous communities ever since. The programme includes the story of the ‘Woomera babies’. For the first time on British television, it is revealed how the tests are believed to have impacted the small town of Woomera in South Australia, which was a military base situated around 600 kilometres from nuclear detonations. During the 1950s and 1960s the town saw an unexplained, high number of infant deaths and still-births. The town bears the scars of the tragedy, as row upon row of tiny graves are still in evidence at the local cemetery.

Cancers of the liver, blood, bone, bowel, skin and brain, heart disease, leukaemia, stillbirths and generational birth defects are amongst the catalogue of medical disorders suffered by many of the survivors and their children. They’ve campaigned for decades to get their voices heard.

The film raises questions about the shattering consequences of Britain’s race to become a global nuclear power and allegations of decades of cover up at the heart of government.