Silent Tears: The Life and Times of a Nuclear Test Cloud-Chaser

John Folkes is one of my heroes, and a remarkable person with a remarkable story. He tells the story of Silent Tears movingly and with the sort of authority that only experience can bring. His first-hand account of flying into an atomic cloud following a bomb detonated during the Buffalo test series at Maralinga in South Australia in 1956 will live in my memory. His enduring bravery in speaking his truth to a resistant government is a lesson in civic responsibility and ethics from which we can all learn. He shares his account of an educationally-disadvantaged childhood during wartime that presented him with barriers to overcome to achieve his dream of working for the Royal Air Force. Overcome them he did, with considerable fortitude and courage. From there, he was put in harm's way during the reckless era of British atomic testing in Australia, when the lives of those exposed to radioactivity were held to be cheap by the politicians who orchestrated the tests. I commend this work to anyone who wants to understand the risks that era involved, and their ongoing consequences.

- Associate Professor Elizabeth Tynan

James Cook University, Australia