Norfolk farmer who lives to tell nuclear bomb tale 

Retired Norfolk farmer Colin King literally has an explosive story of nuclear explosions, car and sporting accidents. Ian White reports.

Octogenarian Colin believes God not only saved his life from a nuclear explosion in the RAF, but also after serious farming, road and sporting accidents during his long agricultural career.

Colin recalls, with horror, a nuclear bomb exploding on Christmas Island in August 1958 when he was just 20.

Colin was helping to train paratroopers, which involved them jumping from a basket fixed under a barrage balloon. His job was to operate a winch to let the wire out for the hydrogen-filled balloons to go up to 1,000ft.

Then it was decided the balloons would be an “ideal means” to lift an atom bomb to a desirable height for a controlled detonation.

Without protective clothing, a group of about 30 sat with their backs towards ground zero – with their hands over their eyes – as no less than four balloons were mounted on the same wire rope, to take the bomb up about 1,200ft!

As countdown began, Colin’s heart was pounding, and when the bomb exploded… “the fireball was like looking at hell, a mass of flames whirling around and around. Then the implosion took soil and debris up through this inferno.

“When the cloud formed it was a very anxious time; the cloud contains radioactive material which would kill if contaminated by it!”

In fact, Colin suffered damaged lungs as he helped reassemble their tents which had been blown down in the blast several miles away, but firmly believes God spared his life. Tragically, many men have since died of cancers and rare diseases caused by the radiation.

Back in civvy street, in January 1960, Colin had a bad farming accident when he severely cut his tendon with a hook while cutting cattle feed... his hands numb from pain because of the cold.

In freezing temperatures, he walked a mile to the surgery where he was bandaged up, before he drove himself to two different hospitals to finally be operated on.

Whilst hospitalised for ten days, his flock of laying hens contracted foul pest; he had to slaughter them with his plaster on, getting covered in blood.

But again the outcome for Colin could have been far worse; instead he went on to meet and marry Ronwyn whom he spotted singing in a church choir.

Soon after they wed in July 1961, accident-prone Colin was at it again: going in for a tackle in a football match on hard ground, he cracked his head after falling.

Playing on concussed, it was only when he got back home to Ronwyn that he was taken to hospital. It took about three months to get over the concussion, and again he could have died.

During recuperation Colin was privileged to meet British Army officer John Hunt of Mount Everest expedition fame, who was staying at his parents’ farm to escape the media after losing a friend in a climbing accident.

Later it was evident Colin still overdid things at times... “Once after finishing a long day’s work I travelled to a meeting 120 miles away. It was about 1.30am by the time I got back,  when next thing I knew I was going through the air in the car, landing on a grass verge, facing the way I’d come from.

“The roof was caved in and in front of me on the grass was my windscreen.”

Yet Colin was relatively unscathed and was driven home by a breakdown truck driver.

Colin has seen many other miracles of God’s protection and provision throughout his colourful 85 years.

He came to know God personally when aged just ten. Hearing ex-boxer Jimmy Day preach, Colin felt overwhelmingly convinced of his need to accept Jesus as his own personal saviour.

“I argued within myself that everyone knows I’m a Christian, but as God’s Holy Spirit impressed on me the fact that Jesus died on the cross for my sins, I broke down and cried as I realised he died to pay the price for my sins. I repented [expressed my remorse] and prayed for Jesus to come into my life.

“That experience has remained with me all these years, and my love and relationship with Jesus as my dear saviour has grown more wonderful and deeper.”

When Colin was a child, Terry Rhodes – a cousin of the late Queen – encouraged Colin to share his faith in public. This put him in good stead for when adult Colin took the plunge in helping to lead an international Christian men’s fellowship, through which he’s preached and travelled far and wide.

Colin reflects: “My grandmother and mother’s wish that I became a minister of the gospel has certainly come true!”
 
Article courtesy of Good News Newspaper: www.goodnews-paper.org.uk

Pictured top is Colin King and, above, the Grapple 1 nuclear test on 15 May 1957. Hailed as Britain's first hydrogen bomb test, it was in fact a technological failure. Picture courtesy of commons.wikimedia