Dearbhaile Bradley

Mandy from her son Tom's website tomsimone.co.uk

October 3rd 2011 Mandy Simone died of cancer. I was at Hinkley Point Nuclear Power Station at the time, making what feels like a pathetic and ineffective effort to prevent a large number of people becoming ill with cancer through my participation in the blockade. It’s a day that left me disheartened and disillusioned. But hearing that Mandy has died has taken me to a much more heart-broken space. I can only discover the thoughts that the emotion carries by weeping and any of you familiar with grief’s gifts will know the fear that if you start crying you’ll never stop. (more…)

I suspect she’s about ten, the girl in the top bunk. Her little brother is asleep on the bunk bed below as she looks out the gap between the curtains at the dying rays of a summer’s sun.

I don’t know how exactly she has become aware of nuclear weapons and the reality that the world can end in three minutes but that is what she’s thinking about as she listens to the birds singing the sweetness of the evening. She slips out of bed and stands by the window looking out at familiar trees.

“I promise, I promise myself, that if I find I am to die with everything else in a nuclear bomb that I will know that I did everything I could for this not to happen.” (more…)