It is hard to believe that today is the 40th anniversary of the Chernobyl disaster and I can remember seeing news reports at the time and the worries that the resulting radiation would reach the UK – as I recall some did actually reach Cumbria.

We all know the aftermath but fast forward to almost 10 years later and I photographed the Atomic Mirror Pilgrimage in April 1996 for the North West Evening Mail where a total of 12 participants took part in a vigil and and poured Hiroshima water into Devonshire Dock in Barrow-in-Furness in south Cumbria before finishing at Sellafield on the 10th anniversary.

And in January 2008 I travelled to Ukraine with the annual shoebox appeal, Operation Christmas Child, and got within 50 miles of Pripyat which was the scene of the 1986 disaster.

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