Backs to the Blast: An Australian Nuclear Story (1981)

Backs To The Blast begins by looking at the history of uranium mining in Australia, especially post-war developments at Radium Hill in South Australia. A ghost town when this film was made, Radium Hill flourished in the 1950s, recruiting some 600 mine workers to provide uranium ore to the US and the UK. Mountains of radio-active tailings remained after mining ceased in the 1960s - as well as a legacy of cancer and illness for many of the workers. The ore from Radium Hill was taken by rail to Port Pirie (with radio-active tailings used to build the railway track) where the ore was processed prior to being shipped overseas. For years, children played in areas of radio-active waste around the processing plant, and now cancer rates are high. But shocking as these stories may have been in 1981 when the film was released, the film escalates its disclosures about official denial and negligence to tell the story of the British nuclear tests at Maralinga in South Australia from 1945 to 1963. Hundreds of Anangu people from the area were forcibly removed in 1952 to Yalata mission on the coast, and although the area was then claimed to have been "totally devoid" of people, evidence has since proliferated that many Aboriginal people did in fact remain in the area throughout the period of the Atomic Bomb tests. The film also looks at the devastating impact on the health and life expectancy of servicemen and site workers who served at Maralinga. —Paul Gerard Kennedy