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A concerned parent and Andy Hinde faced life-altering information in 2018 when their young son their child was diagnosed with a rare type of childhood cancer.

24 months of intensive medical care followed, involving drug treatments, radiation therapy, and biological therapies before a cellular therapy. Their son, by age three, made a extraordinary turnaround from the surgery, with doctors confirming the cancer in regression.

It was at this point that Gaffney, 36, began looking for causes. She constantly recalled comments made by hospital staff at the time of her child's illness. “We're tormented wondering how he got his disease,” a doctor had shared with her.

“It keeps us up at night wondering how our son got his illness,” a doctor had shared with her.

Background Information

The improper handling of vast quantities of contaminated waste after the closure of a major industrial facility in this community in 1979 had “always been a known thing,” said Gaffney. A legal proceeding associated the improper remediation efforts of the site to a series of developmental issues in town residents during the twentieth century.

Increasingly, Gaffney started to link the situation to her own. “[His illness] is not inherited,” she said. “So what are the reasons? … It has to be down to the area. Numerous young people [with] cancer.

“Everybody in this town knows someone who’s got a minor [with] the disease. That’s not normal.”

Grassroots Movement

The parents started to reach out to other families in Corby with parallel situations – including some of the mother's ex-school friends at Brooke Weston Academy – and the collective began assembling detailed records on those impacted. They now head a movement representing about 130 families with situations of pediatric illness going back to 1988.

The organization has been calling on the town council to examine any links between cases of youth disease in Corby and the decommissioning of the plant. Soon, public health officials are preparing to share their analysis of whether the town has had a unusually high rate of cases of youth disease for its population of seventy thousand.

“All we want is to try and protect future people so they can avoid the suffering that we’ve been through,” said Alison.

Legal Precedents

The judgment in the 2009 civil claim acknowledged that, between a fourteen-year period, vast quantities of toxic substances from the steel plant were relocated “almost invariably” from the southern part of town to Deene Quarry in the opposite end – with “significant amounts” of contaminated substances moved and dropped on public roads and “substantial quantities” of airborne particles generated by the cleanup.

Nevertheless, it also mentioned documents from the environmental authorities in 1997 that identified collections of contaminated material that had been abandoned at the site were later taken away in “significant amounts”.

Growing Suspicions

The campaign leader believes toxic substances was not only dumped at the Deene Quarry site but in additional areas of the town. Lately, she welcomed a “major step forward” after local authorities said it would analyze land that could be polluted and study where contaminated substances was disposed of.

Alison said government representatives confirmed in the discussion that they lacked information where the sites of contaminated waste could be. “They stated: ‘We lack information where these areas are. Documentation is missing, we have nothing on it.’”

Local Backing

The government declaration was also embraced by a community member, a pastoral lead at a primary school, whose nine-year-old daughter, her daughter, was confirmed to have a hematologic malignancy in recent months.

“I had to shave my little girl's head because her tresses was shedding from the medications she had to take to kill her disease. So actually it’s in our interest, it’s in her daughter's welfare [for the council] to share that data,” she said.

“Countless individuals in the area that have been diagnosed with childhood cancer and I just feel it’s impossible to overlook – it demands examination. This can’t be normal.”

Individual Accounts

Meg Lyons, aged thirty-one, who has a professional career and now has moved away, said parents merited “absolute honesty and transparency” from the council.

Her family member, the girl, passed away on in recent years after being found to have a specific illness at the age of nine. Eve, who raised awareness for medical research, was “exceptionally adorable, funniest and kindest” persons, Lyons stated.

Her family member remembers the effect of the shutdown of the manufacturing site on the town, she explained. “She recalled you couldn’t put your palm in ahead of you because [of] the particulate matter.”

“These issues have continued since I was approximately about my youth. This duration is unreasonable and it is negligence toward the people of Corby.”

Historical Connections

Another family member, Maggie Mahon, was part of multiple families involved in the court proceeding against the then Corby council after her infant was diagnosed with a congenital issue. Her husband, the man, was among the lorry drivers involved in transporting materials from the steelworks. Their experience was shown in a media production, and demonstrated the woman removing the dust from her spouse's clothing.

Alison said the organization has been reached out to by informants who were involved in the dumping of substances in the community.