My name is Steve Williams father of the late Stuart Williams and spokesman for Parents Against Leukaemia (P.A.L.)
My son Stuart died in April 1990 from Leukaemia in 1993 when Matthew Roginson was diagnosed as also having Leukaemia and being the fourth child in less than half a square mile to develop the disease we sat down to talk. Matthews mum (Sharon) & my wife (Dorrine) are old friends so it was easy to talk to her and her husband. We had not at this point spoken to Mrs. croft (Sheila) mother of Amy who lived just a few doors down the street and was in her seventh year of treatment for yes you guessed it Leukaemia. So it was decided that someone, (that someone being me) should go and see Mrs. Croft. I knocked on the door and was welcomed with open arms, as they had wanted to contact us but did not like to. With Matthew just being diagnosed Sharon was still in shock and with Amy doing so well they felt guilty because we had lost Stuart. We all sat down and decided on the group name Parents Against Leukaemia. Then it was time to contact the fourth family in our group Paula & Henry Young whose son Craig was in second year of treatment and doing very well. We decided this could not be just by chance as our local health authority was saying, so we started asking lots of questions .The only thing as far as we could see the children had in common was the Railway just over the garden fence with some six lines all powered by high voltage electricity. Which everybody is agreed create ( EMF.) Electric and Magnetic Fields and have for years been linked to Cancer/Leukaemia. Dr Amanda Burls from Northants Health Authority was given the job of shutting up over anxious and as she thought not very well informed parents. Dr Burls called a meeting at the local school for all concerned, where there would be experts to answer all our questions. We started to ask questions of local groups looking at (EMF.) and other possible causes of Leukaemia and asked their experts to attend the meeting. The Health Authority reluctantly agreed. The day of the meeting came and Dr Burls and her experts got a bit of a shock we where very well prepared we had studied for this meeting and asked lots of relevant questions their so called experts could not answer. Alisdair Philips and his wife attended the meeting as our guests they are founder members of Power watch a pressure group whose main interests are (EMF.) and the links to Leukaemia /Cancer. Alisdair took reading in all the houses in Pembroke rd and found high (EMF.). But no one at the health authority seemed to care. Shortly after the meeting we were contacted by a freelance journalist called Simon Redley. He wanted to act as our agent and get us some national media coverage he did just that and myself and Paula were soon appearing on Good Morning with Ann Diamond and Nick Owen. Soon after the show went out the BBC were contacted by one of our old neighbors who then through the program got in touch we us only to let us no that in 1992 here father had also died from leukaemia whilst living directly across the road from my house. The rest of his family then moved to Burnley and had no knowledge of our campaign until seeing us on good morning. The man who died was Barry Williams (no relation). A fifty year old father of four. The campaign had by now been going for 5 years and sadly seen the death of young Matthew Roginson who died in Birmingham Children’s Hospital on 31 march 1997 following a Bone marrow Transplant. Matthew is the third death in the road in 8 years from Leukaemia. We have also been to Westminster to meet with ministers arranged by Sally Keeble our local MP who has been very helpful with our campaign. Another meeting that achieved nothing. We also took a petition to Mr. Major at Downing St only to have it sent back to our Health Authority who just produced a very patronizing report that really said we don’t know but keep your children away from the railway just to be on the safe side. So now I think the time is right to try and bring all Cancer / Leukaemia clusters that are close to high voltage power lines together and believe me there are very many of them. This web site will grow as I contact other groups nationwide their stories will appear. There will be no political or scientific backing just true stories so that members of the public like me can make up there own minds.
This web site was designed and built by my brother Mick Williams to whom we are very grateful for his time and effort